Waited untill I had done a 400 mile round trip to visit family,giving a more balanced initial review!
My initial thoughts on the car, is its a galloping leap forward compared to the pre facelift. The cabin has an air of upmarket feel, with Hyundai’s soft touch materials on first inspection, anything below the steering wheel is hard plastic, not as you will notice looking. The front door card’s have Hyundai’s soft touch all over apart from the door bins which aren’t felt lined but, easily acheived if needed. To my surprise the rear door cars were the same as the front, which compared to the Tiggy’s hard plastic rear carss was a bonus. That said its not on the level of BMW’s soft touch. However, you wouldn’t want for options, as it has everything you could wish for. The @rse coolers have got to be one of my favourite lol.
The centre consul has a wiress charge pad, below that there is a nice feeling tactile rubber material to stop things rolling around. There is now a shelf above the glovebox, which mres kezo likes, as she can place her phone etc. The two screens are huge in comparison to the pre facelift and most importantly the graphics are sharp and clear, as is the 360 camera qaulity. There is a HUD, which is crstal clear and display lots of things if you want however, I can take it all leave it and wouldn’t spec one as an option.
The windscreen and front side windows are acoustic glass, which makes for a suprisingly quite drive and certainly quiter than my previous one. I feel the car is much more planted than my prevous Tuscon, making for a far superior ride over our less than perfect roads. However it is heavy and you can tell its weight, when slowing from xxx mph. Throwing it about in corners, I am now use to and find no trouble doing it, which in part is due to the reasuring extra grip of the AWD system.
The key is up for discussion, with Hyundai reinventing the tamagotchi! However, this is easily soved as I am waiting delivery of an 80p cover from aliexpress to make it look like a key, rather than a toy!
Over the weekend visited family, meaning a 400 mile round trip. I decided, I would use HEV mode as it was beyond the reach of battery only range. I had also planned not to charge it untill I returned home. Over the 400 miles, with a little running about whils’t there. The car returned 50.4mpg, which considering its weight along with my heavy right foot, I didn’t think was too shabby especially compared to my previous Tucson ICE, which returned 40mpg on the same journey.
If I had started the journey in EV mode, I would have been able to drive on electric utill the battery reached 10-15% and then the car would have automatically switched to hybrid HEV mode. I’m not going to guess and give a false answer how many miles it would have travelled at higher speeds but, my plan is to try this in 3 weeks when I make the journey again, to see which is the most economical way of doing this journey. However, I can confirm the car will easily travel above 70mph on battery power alone.
In sport mode it goes like sh!t of a shoval, yet still manages to drive as a self charging hybrid (HEV), although not as much as in eco mode. There are 2 settings ECO & Sport, plus different terrain modes.
As said previous, I got the PHEV to save money taking dd to a from school and driving locally, which is where I think a PHEV shines. Prior to taking delivery I took a guess, I would need to charge it 2.5 times a week, which turned out to bang on really. For that I am getting to take my daughter to and from school (80 miles p/week) plus shopping etc say an extra 10 -15 miles or so. I currently pay 9p kwh off peak, so the 90 odd miles are costing £2.88 or £2.40 if I join Octopus Intelligent. Am I happy with that (range), yes and no to be honest! I would have liked a bit more range between charges but, I have to take into consideration, I live ontop of a mountain and generally hilly area, so logically it’s going to use more of the battery when going up a mountain than going down or living in an area which is more flat, so taking this into consideration I’m happy, especially given my previous nx4 Tucson used 3 gallons of petrol for the same journey.
I have yet to play in depth with the regen settings, when I feel brave enough to use anything other than level one. The car has 3 regen setting and a one pedal driving setting. I imagine using a setting higher than one will massively help to keep the battery topped up especially going down the mountain lol. I am use to ICE, so it will take time to get use to these, if I choose to use them.
This is relevant to the Sportage PHEV, apart from the my25 Tucson having a larger kW motor, making it 1s quicker than the pre facelift. I guess the Sportage will get next year.
I have breifly the adaptive cruise control and lane follow assist, which seemed to do as intended. I have also used the adaptive cruise in slow moving traffic in town, which again seemed to work as intended however, I am a “driver” so tend not to use these.
Would I have paid over £6k + options for a car on the scheme even if it was my favourite BMW that was available, no I wouldn’t is the simple answer! Its not my car to own and I wasn’t a fan giving Motability £4.6k ontop of sacrified benifits, given its not mine. As a retail customer things would have probably looked very different!
Thats it for now ladies and gents, I’ll update with a follow up in amonth or so 🙂
