I’ve mentioned before that with only two reviews per month – 24 per year – some good cars have fallen through the cracks in my seven years here at the Town Crier and losaltosonline.com.
The Hyundai Tucson is one of the most popular cars in the U.S., and the last time one was featured in this column was March of 2005, by my predecessors, the late Gary Anderson and his wife Genie.
More than 21 years. Let’s fix that glaring oversight right now.
The Tucson is a compact SUV that seats five people. Among its direct competitors in a very crowded field are the Subaru Forester (“On the Move,” September 2025) and the Honda CR-V (“On the Move,” August 2023).
The Tucson checks all the boxes in a competitive segment. It isn’t lacking in any essential area, and it offers a bonus. It is one of only a few compact SUVs that offer a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) model – another is its corporate cousin, the mechanically similar Kia Sportage (“On the Move,” June 2026).
Basically, a PHEV is a gasoline/electric hybrid, which maximizes fuel efficiency. But it adds a small battery and a charging port and allows you to travel a given number of miles per charge on pure electric power. In the Hyundai Tucson PHEV, that number is 32 miles.
So if your commute is 15 miles each way, and you recharge at home every night, you could go months without using a drop of gasoline or putting a particle of tailpipe pollution into the air. The battery is small, so recharges, even on 110-volt household current, are relatively quick.
Should you need to drive farther, the gasoline/electric hybrid kicks in seamlessly, and, according to the EPA, returns 35 miles per gallon combined city/highway. But if you have charged the car and use those 32 miles of pure electric range first, that results in an EPA estimate of 77 MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent). So it pays to always charge.
On a long trip? Just pull into a gas station and fill ’er up.
Cargo capacity in the 2026 Hyundai Tucson PHEV is ample – 38.7 cubic feet behind the second-row seat and 74.5 cubic feet with the back seat folded down.
The Tucson is one of the few compact SUVs with almost the same rear-seat legroom as front-row legroom – 41.4 inches up front, 41/3 in the back. That is serious stretch-out space.
Our test vehicle is the top-of-the-line Limited AWD. Base price $48,300-$49,000 including destination. The list of standard equipment, too long to print in its entirety, includes 19-inch alloy wheels, a panoramic sunroof, leather-trimmed seats (heated and ventilated up front, heated in the back), a heated leather-wrapped steering wheel, a hands-free power liftgate, dual-zone automatic temperature control, a Bose premium audio system with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and a comprehensive suite of active safety features.
The only extra-cost option on our car was a $240 set of carpeted floormats, so the as-tested price comes to $50,140.
Regular readers know I’m a big fan of PHEVs. They cost more than non-plug-in hybrids or gasoline variants (and Hyundai offers those versions of the Tucson, too), but the EPA says you’ll save $2,250 in fuel costs over five years compared to the average new vehicle with the 2026 Hyundai Tucson PHEV. It’s a great bridge for the buyer who’d like to go pure EV, but isn’t quite ready yet.