Hyundai had two major premieres at the 2024 New York Auto Show. The most important was the facelifted Santa Cruz, with the pickup celebrating its world debut, joined by the 2025 Tucson crossover that has finally made its way to our shores a few months after being unveiled in its homeland.
If you're unfamiliar with the design, then the visual updates will fly under the radar, as they are very discreet. Still, owners of the pre-facelifted iteration will instantly notice the boxier appearance of the new front bumper, as well as the different daytime running lights. It also has skid plates on the entry-level variant, a sportier appearance for the N Line, a fresh color palette, and new alloys.
For the 2025 model year, the Hyundai Tucson also gets a curved display inside, just like its pickup sibling, the facelifted Santa Cruz. It features the same 12.3-inch dual screens, and customers can specify it with an optional color head-up display. The compact crossover comes with physical buttons for the HVAC system and audio, and the new steering wheel, column-mounted gear shifter on upper specs, and a few other bits and bobs complete the visual makeover.
Future buyers will be pleased to learn that the safety gear has been enhanced and that the self-charging hybrid and plug-in hybrid models now benefit from a new Baby Mode. This feature is said to smoothen the acceleration and will be useful to customers with children and pets. Moreover, adult passengers with carsickness will certainly appreciate this new gimmick, as well.
Photo: Hyundai
In the powertrain family, it's pretty much the same as before, save for the partially electrified units that are now slightly punchier. The 2025 Tucson Hybrid's electric motor produces five horsepower more, and the model offers a combined 231 hp (234 ps/172 kW). The electric motor was upgraded in the PHEV, too, and this variant puts 268 hp (271 ps/200 kW) under the driver's right foot.
The partially electrified Tucsons have standard all-wheel drive and adjustable regenerative braking. The ones featuring the standard 2.5-liter gasoline burner carry over without any modifications, enjoying the same 187 hp (190 ps/139 kW), with an auto 'box and front- or all-wheel drive, depending on the selected specifications.
Given that the Korean car manufacturer will launch the Tucson in the United States of America this summer, with the first units expected to reach dealers nationwide in June, we cannot tell you anything about the model's pricing yet. What we can highlight is the fact that the internal combustion-powered crossovers will launch at first, with the hybrid and plug-in hybrid joining it at the end of summer.
The facelifted iteration comes four years after the fourth-generation Hyundai Tucson entered production, and it will likely stick around for at least two or probably three years. This means that the current generation is here to stay, yet in the meantime, we bet that the car manufacturer will start working on its successor – if it hasn't already.
Photo: Hyundai
It is possible that the next-gen Tucson will be due a few years before the end of the decade. The third generation lived for around five years in total, and the second generation lived for six years. Chances are the upcoming Tucson might be due as a 2027 model in the United States, and knowing how Hyundai rolls these days, it is possible that it will only be offered with partially or fully electrified power solely – our two cents on the matter that should be treated accordingly.
We think Hyundai's design team hasn't even finalized its styling, and the next one has big shoes to fill, given that the current Tucson is a very popular and eye-pleasing product. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the rendering world cannot go crazy with it, and as it happens, we just stumbled upon a digital illustration that imagines what the upcoming compact crossover might look like – in the pixel manipulator's own way, obviously.
The person behind this rendering is tedoradze.giorgi, who recently took to social media to share it. It is described as being a 2027 model and has a sharper styling compared to the current one, featuring a fresh face with a full-width light bar, redesigned headlamps, vertical DRLs, fat wheel arches, new lines on the profile, a different and unrealistic (if you ask us) green house and basically new everything.
This hypothetical 2027 Hyundai Tucson sports a red finish with a black top and a few blacked-out accents. It also has some chrome trim on the upper parts of the side windows, slim side mirrors, and large alloys. We can't say we hate it, and we can't say we love it either, as this virtual proposal falls somewhere in between, and a production version inspired by it could go either way. But do you think it looks better or worse than the 2025 model?
After a series of unfortunate events put an end to Cristian's dream of entering a custom built & tuned old-school Dacia into a rally competition, he moved on to drive press cars and write for a living. He's worked for several automotive online journals and now he's back at autoevolution after his first tour in the mid-2000s. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News