2024 Hyundai Tucson Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The current-generation Hyundai Tucson was introduced for the 2022 model year, marking the fourth generation of this compact SUV. It’s largely a carryover from 2022 to 2023 to today. The Tucson has fantastic styling, with taut angles and unique choices, such as the headlights that blend into the grille. Any one of these details on their own would be an aggressive choice, but it’s all woven together into a handsome, contemporary package. Even in white—our test vehicle colour—this crossover looks sharp, which is impressive because white is typically not an ideal colour for vehicle photography.

The contrasting angles make for an athletic presence and that headlight integration shares a design trend that Hyundai is executing very well right now. Some automakers—typically luxury brands—make all of their vehicles look the same and simply scale up and down in size. Hyundai vehicles all have their own unique style.

Trim levels for the Tucson in Canada include Preferred (available with the Trend package), N Line, Luxury, and Ultimate. The Preferred comes with 17-inch alloy wheels and roof rails. Moving up to the N Line adds 19-inch alloy wheels. The Ultimate trim features a dark chrome grille and upgraded headlights.

That terrific design execution continues in the modern, refined cabin. You can tell there is a lot of technology here, but it’s packaged in a way that makes it feel approachable. There are some details we don’t like, such as our test model's missing volume dial. Instead, it had touch-capacitive buttons and a toggle on the steering wheel, but a volume dial always makes a vehicle easier to live with. The location of some controls closer to the shifter and cupholders was a nice touch. You’ll have to learn which buttons are down in the centre and away from the touchscreen and climate controls, though.

Standard features on the base Preferred trim include two USB ports, remote keyless entry with push-button start, dual-zone automatic climate control, a manually adjustable driver’s seat, heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, HD radio, power windows, and a 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, both of which require a wire in all trims. Tacking on the Trend package adds a power-adjustable driver’s seat, leatherette upholstery, a panoramic sunroof, and two more USB ports.

The N Line trim incorporates a slew of sporty accents, including combination leather and cloth seats, ambient lighting, paddle shifters, aluminum pedals, and a Bose 8-speaker sound system. The Luxury trim keeps the ambient lighting and Bose audio system and adds heated outboard rear seats, an auto-dimming rear view mirror, and an ultrasonic rear occupant alert and rear parking distance warning indicator.

We drove the Ultimate trim, which came extremely well-equipped. It included ventilated front seats, genuine leather upholstery, memory settings for the driver’s seat, and a long list of trim-exclusive driver assistance technologies including front parking distance warning, remote smart park assist, rear parking collision avoidance, highway drive assist, a surround-view camera, and Hyundai’s camera-based blind view monitor.

In Canada 2024 Hyundai Tucson Preferred comes equipped with a 2.5-litre four-cylinder engine. It develops 187 horsepower and 178 pound-feet of torque. Power is routed through an eight-speed automatic transmission to standard all-wheel drive (AWD).

This is the only non-hybrid powertrain offered in the Tucson, which is disappointing. It’s fine for around-town driving, but getting up to highway speeds and making a passing maneuver requires putting the throttle nearly to the floor. It still doesn’t feel like it’s getting you there much faster, either, and it makes a great deal of engine noise while it’s working to do so. If you prefer more motivation, check out the 226-hp Tucson Hybrid or the 261-hp Tucson Plug-In Hybrid.

The downside of those more powerful and efficient versions is that they come standard with a proprietary button-style shifter design. This will take a moment to learn, and even longer to sink in and become second nature, which could be an issue if you lend your vehicle to a family member. Hyundai‘s shifter design isn’t the best but it’s intuitive enough and seamlessly integrated into the centre console, which has its benefits in packaging the area for other features.

Where the Tucson shines (from a driving dynamics perspective) is its handling and ride quality. It strikes a deft combination of ride comfort and cornering prowess. The Tucson soaks up bumps in the road, which will make it great for long trips or the daily commute. Take it quickly through a turn, and you’ll enjoy the well-weighted and precise steering. It’s not as athletic as a Mazda CX-5 or CX-50, but those vehicles are the athletic exceptions. Instead, like with many elements of the Tucson, the driving experience is well-rounded.

The Tucson provides up to 2,119 litres of cargo space with the rear seats folded. With the rear seats in use, it provides up to 1,097 litres of cargo space. Those are terrific numbers among the compact SUV segment. The Tucson Preferred comes with a manual liftgate. All other trims (Preferred with Trend package and above) come with a hands-free power liftgate.

You may have seen one of these smart liftgates where the owner needs to wave a foot under the rear bumper to operate it. The whole point of the hands-free liftgate is to make it more convenient when your arms are full due to groceries or holding your child, so balancing on one foot in some form of “Parking Lot Waltz” doesn’t seem like the most practical method of operation. Instead, you just need to approach the rear of the Tucson with the key fob on your person. Once the vehicle is locked and 15 seconds have passed, you just have to stand within three feet of the rear bumper for more than three seconds. It’s a very intuitive system that makes an eponymous big box out of a big box store much easier to load.

The Tucson has room for up to five passengers, and both rows provide adult-friendly seating. There’s plenty of headroom and legroom, even in the rear area, but the front seats are that bit more spacious. This vehicle can handle four adults for a longer trip, which is more than some other small SUVs can claim. There are plenty of deep cup holders throughout the cabin. The centre tray between the shifter area and the centre stack has room for items, and it’s also home to the standard wireless device charging pad.

The standard infotainment system includes a fully digital instrument panel, as well as a 10.25-inch touchscreen. It has an intuitive layout, but there are some downsides. For one, connectivity for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay is not wireless. Not a deal-breaker, but this feature is readily available among the competition. Next, instead of the thumb rollers, you get an annoying haptic one-press-up/one-press-down volume toggle. On the plus side, the touchscreen and haptic buttons (think “microwave button pad”) all work while wearing gloves. We found that in extreme cold, it took a while for the heating system to kick in, so the gloves were necessary some mornings. Not having to remove them to use the interface was helpful.

We also love how Hyundai has evolved its remote start system. For years, you press the key fob to start the vehicle remotely, and then when you hop in, you press the start button. In the Tucson, once its remotely started and you get into the car, the vehicle detects the key. Just put it in Drive and go.

A number of driver assistance features come standard on the Hyundai Tucson, including automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, pedestrian and cyclist detection, adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist, automatic high beams, driver attention monitoring, blind-spot monitoring, and rear cross-traffic alert.

Stepping up to the range-topping Ultimate trim adds front and rear parking sensors, a 360-degree parking camera system, and Hyundai’s Smart Park remote-parking feature. With Smart Park, you can back up or pull forward the vehicle into a tight parking spot while standing outside the vehicle. It has a very straightforward operation via two buttons on the key fob. The Ultimate also adds a helpful blind-spot camera system. When you activate the turn signal in a particular direction, this feature presents a real-time video feed of the blind spot that corresponds to that direction. The blind-spot monitor will warn you that something is there, but the blind-spot camera system adds another layer of context to survey the lane yourself before moving over.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) gives the 2024 Tucson a best overall score of “Good” in most phases of crash testing. The standard headlights get a less superlative score of “Acceptable.” The crash-prevention technology earns a best possible score of “Superior.” The 2024 Tucson is largely a carryover from the 2023 model, which is an IIHS Top Safety Pick+. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has not fully evaluated the 2024 Tucson, but so far it earned five stars in a frontal crash test and four stars in a rollover test.

With its standard gas-only powertrain and AWD, the 2024 Hyundai Tucson has fuel economy ratings of 10.0 litres per 100 kilometres in city driving, 7.9 on the highway, and 9.1 combined. Within the compact SUV segment, the Nissan Rogue, Toyota RAV4, and CR-V are more efficient.

Base MSRP for the 2024 Hyundai Tucson is $36,881 for the Preferred trim, including destination charges and dealer fees. Adding the Trend package to this trim increases the price by $2,500. The N Line, which is a hybrid as standard and available as a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), starts at $43,281. Luxury trim starts at the same price as the N Line, and the range-topping Limited trim that we drove starts at $46,681. The Tucson is backed by Hyundai’s 5-year/100,000-kilometre new vehicle warranty, which includes the powertrain.

It’s not the fastest small SUV or the most efficient, but oftentimes things like acceleration and fuel efficiency come at the expense of other attributes. When we say that the 2024 Hyundai Tucson is a well-rounded SUV, we mean that one attribute does not excel to the detriment of other attributes. The handling blends comfort and precision, the cabin provides plenty of space for people and their gear, and the technology is helpful without being intrusive. Combine all of this with a competitive base price, and you have the makings of a small SUV that’s a tremendous value for consumers.

Note: Images show a US model.