Hyundai and Kia inaugurated the 2024 New York Auto Show press days as the siblings brought to America the enhanced 2025 Tucson and facelifted Santa Cruz plus the fresh K4 – Forte's renamed successor.
We already knew that Hyundai was going to grace New York with the refreshed Santa Cruz unibody compact pickup truck produced in Montgomery, Alabama, at HMMA and the Tucson crossover SUV sibling because the South Korean company teased their arrival a few days ago. Now it's time to see what makes them tick.
As far as the 2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz is concerned, it faces an uphill battle against the more popular, cheaper, and electrified 2024 Ford Maverick, but the company is convinced the enhancements will make their offering more compelling than the Mexico-produced rival. Meanwhile, the American specification 2025 Hyundai Tucson follows the international version of being "smarter, more capable," and slightly more rugged.
The updated compact crossover SUV continues with the same Sensuous Sportiness design identity but now has a "more commanding front and rear appearance, updated lighting signatures, new alloy wheel designs, and a significantly redesigned interior." Aditionally, a wide array of driver comfort, convenience, and safety technologies were added to the CUV's list of features.
"The refreshed 2025 Tucson SUV expands the appeal of our full-spectrum eco-powertrain approach, offering internal combustion, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid models in a popular compact SUV design," said José Muñoz, president and global COO of Hyundai Motor Company and president and CEO of Hyundai Motor North America. "With all-wheel drive offered on gas and hybrid models, customers can enjoy all-road, all-weather capability coupled with outstanding efficiency and an attractive variety of trims, including outdoor-focused XRT and sporty N Line models."
We don't have the pricing details just yet, but the company promises that 2025 Tucson 2.5-liter models will arrive first at US dealerships in June, followed by the 1.6-liter turbo, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid variants later during the final days of summer. The revised exterior styling elements include a redesigned grille, modified front and rear bumpers, an upgraded daytime running light signature, fresh alloy wheels, anodized aluminum badges, as well as a 75-mm longer rear wiper blade.
More importantly, the 2025 Tucson has a huge upgrade in store for the cockpit, where there's a redesigned panoramic curved display with an optional 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and a larger 12.3-inch infotainment display. The center stack now welcomes back supplementary knobs and switchgear for frequent-use driver controls, including audio volume and tuning, along with certain HVAC controls. There's also a new center console, fresh door panel accents, and a different steering wheel. Behind it, on premium versions, sits the new column-mounted gear selector for the shift-by-wire transmission function.
Under the hood, the 2025 Tucson is set to arrive with the Smartstream 2.5-liter direct-injected and multi-port-injected gasoline inline-four that's good for 187 horsepower at 6,100 rpm and 178 lb.-ft. of torque at 4,000 rpm – it sends the power to the wheels via a standard eight-speed automatic transmission. The Hybrid and PHEV models both use a 1.6-liter, direct-injected, turbocharged engine with electric assistance – it produces a combined system output of 231 horsepower in its classic hybrid application and an estimated 258 lb.-ft. of torque thanks to a more powerful 47.7-kW electric motor (44.2 kW in the past) and 1.49-kWh lithium-ion battery pack.
The plug-in hybrid model also has a punchier 72-kW electric motor, and the combined system output is now 268 horsepower and 258 lb.-ft. of torque. The battery pack has 13.8 kWh, and Level 2 charging is offered at speeds of up to 7.2 kW thanks to the onboard charger system.
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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