In Depth: Hyundai Tucson Ultimate PHEV! + Big Savings for Potential Buyers!!
I mean, at the end of the day, you get electricity or electric range when you want it with gas driving range when you need it. Now, that’s why we’re putting it to the test, and I’ll explain more about that later on in the video. What you guys need to know is in this video, we’re talking about everything, and that is powertrain, specs, efficiency, interior, exterior, everything you want to know will be covered in this live stream video. Now, because we’re doing this live, we’re subject to a lot of things going wrong. I mean, the floors are entirely slippery. We already had microphone issues. So, we’re let’s just see how it goes. We’ll start off on the front end. I’m going to familiarize you guys with this specific trim level and the price point, and then we’ll get into the nitty-gritty details. So, let me just flip my camera over. This is the 2025 Hyundai Tucson Ultimate. Now, Ultimate is the trim level name, but the powertrain we’re showcasing today is the plug-in hybrid. Now, the plug-in hybrid specifically is a $5,500 add-on from the regular hybrid variation of the ultimate trim level. Now, for 2025 units only, you have an additional $1,500 or $1,500 off of the plug-in hybrid variation. It’s a plug-in hybrid special. Oh my goodness, I’m having a hard time today. A plug-in hybrid special. So, that already creates our cost in a little bit more of a I shouldn’t say affordable, but a better start. Now, what are we looking at MSRPwise? Well, the Hyundai Tucson in the plug-in hybrid variation has an MSRP of 523.99 if I’m not mistaken. And that has a starting price of course, oh, $528.99. Thank you for correcting me, Ryan. And of course, that is with the add-on of the PHV powertrain included. Exterior wise, this vehicle is shown in crystal white today. It is a complimentary paint, so you don’t have a paint charge on top of it. And we have a lot going on on our front end. There’s a lot of tech, a lot of styling details. Some things are, of course, exclusive to the ultimate trim level, and I’m going to point them all out for you in today’s video. Now, Adam’s going to take over on the camera, and let’s take a look at our headlamps first. Now, headlamps, as far as shape goes, is going to be exactly the same as the rest of the Tucson lineup. However, for your main bulb, it’s a projector style. So, instead of a reflector style lamp, the beam will be more focused where you need it most. You will have a slightly better visibility with projector style. Again, projector is exclusive to the ultimate variations of the Hyundai Tucson, whether you get hybrid or PHV. For your daytime running lights, they’re actually built into the grill’s design, and Hyundai does such a good job with this. When the vehicle is off, and I’ll show you guys in a second, they’re completely camouflaged with the dark satin chrome finish you see in our horizontal slats. The Hyundai emblem or badge in the front is finished in a satin black. And then lower on in our grill, we have a little bit of matte black cladding housing some of your forward- facing parking sensors and your lower grill piece. The skid plates are finished in a silver tone. And then we have slight trace gloss black elements. And I’m so happy it is slight gloss black because we all know when gloss black is everywhere in a car, you see those scratches. You see that dirt very clearly. So the fact that there’s not too much is perfect in my opinion. There’s also a little bit of a satin chrome touch here along your front bumper. So that’s again a more premium material that isn’t going to be too hard to keep clean or keep looking nice. It’s pretty forgiving. Now, as far as safety goes, right underneath our Hyundai emblem, we have our forward- facing camera. On the ultimate trim line is going to be your starting point and I guess only point because there’s nothing higher than this for your full 360° view. So, if I’m parking this vehicle, let’s say in a garage to charge it, as soon as I approach something ahead of me, whether it be my garage wall or fridge, it will show me what’s happening in my front camera. The same is true when you’re reversing the vehicle. It’ll of course show your backup camera. There’s two more cameras I want to point out that make a big difference and not just for parking but also for driving. But you guys have to wait for that. Next, we’re talking powertrain. And I’m also going to shut off the lights so you can see how they transform into the grill’s design. You ready? Bye-bye lights. Let’s bring them back and let’s take them away. I’ll also hit the hazards so you get a view of what your turn signal indicators or your warning lights look like. So, nice amber tones for the turn signals. They’ll also transfer their way over onto your mirrors. And then Adam, if he doesn’t mind, will also work his way towards the back end of the vehicle. I’ll close the lift gate. Spoiler alert, we have a power lift gate. You can see the hazard lights on right now. And then I’ll also hit the brakes for your brake light illumination. Tail lamps are full LEDs. They have a nice dark housing around them, too, giving it an almost tinted look, but without, of course, sacrificing visibility or safety. Pop the hood next, and let’s take a look at the powertrain. So, plug-in hybrids, they can seem a little bit intimidating, especially if you’re not too familiar with just hybrids, period, or even EVs. They are a little bit of a blend between the two. So, we have a gas engine. It’s a 1.6 6 L turbocharged gasoline direct injection 4-cylinder and that’s what we’re looking at right over here. Now, this is the same engine that is also in the hybrid. So, that’s where things get even more confusing. So, what’s the real difference between a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid? Well, a plug-in hybrid is going to have a larger capacity battery. It’s also going to have a port, in this case, on the passenger side where we can plug in this vehicle to charge it. That charge is going to give us electric range. And the Tucson in specific is rated at about 51 km of fully electric range. A regular hybrid will not have a rated range. Sure, if you’re sitting at an idle and stopand go traffic and you know, you’re not demanding too much from the climb control, it can definitely sit in EV, but you can’t drive at high speeds or highway or do your commute in EV mode. You can on this car. So, what is our output with our engine, gasoline engine, of course, our electric motor, and then of course our battery capacity. Well, combining that electric motor and this gasoline powertrain, we have about 258 horsepower with 2568 pound- feet of torque. That is a very, very punchy powertrain. And it’s more efficient than the regular gas model by quite a bit, actually. So, just for contrast, if you are shopping at other trim levels of the Tucson that are non-hybrid or plug-in hybrid variations, you will get a 2.5 L 4-cylinder naturally aspirated, and that only produces 187 horsepower with 178 pound- feet of torque. So, again, a fairly large difference in performance. Now, we’re going to work our way over to the wheels next. These are 19-in alloys that are exclusive to the Ultimate trim level. They have a beautiful machined finish to them. So, you get this bright contrast with the gunmetal finish for your actual main portion of the spoke and then a black Hyundai emblem in the very center. Your brakes up at the front are of course going to be larger, but they’re also vented disc brakes. And then in the rear, we have solid discs, so no drums whatsoever. I mean, I would expect that. Now, as far as our drivetrain goes, the Tucson in its hybrid and plug-in hybrid variations are standard with all-wheel drive here in Canada. There is no front-wheel drive option. However, it does have a front-wheel drive bias, and that is for fuel efficiency. So, there’s no need to really incorporate power to the rear if you don’t need it. So, the car has computers, it’s got sensors, and it redistributes power where you need it most when necessary. So, you can drive along the freeway on a nice dry day, largely in front-wheel drive, making your car as efficient as possible. Very handy. We also get drive modes like sorry terrain modes like snow, mud, and sand, plus drive modes like eco, sport, and a customizable mode. Surrounding your wheel is a black cladded wheel arch giving a nice contrast with our bright white paint. And then right up on the front, you’ll notice that we have one of our parking sensors just pieced a little bit more outward. So, in theory, when you’re parallel parking or maneuvering in tighter spaces, you just have a better range of visibility or at least audible visibility for this vehicle. And then, of course, there is that 360 camera, too. For your windshield, it’s an acoustic laminated windscreen, and that is meant to reduce noise inside the vehicle. So, whether that’s wind noise, road noise, general noise, as long as it’s not coming from inside your car, it is keeping it out of it. So, a nice quiet drive with this car. And then of course because we have a very silent or semi-ilent powertrain, you’re not getting too much engine noise from your vehicle. We have body color mirrors with of course that turn signal indicator. And the arm itself is finished in satin chrome with a little bit of black. Right underneath you’ll notice we have a camera placed in our side view. So this will give you a live camera feed of everything that’s happening in your blind spot anytime you go to indicate a lane change. extremely extremely helpful if you frequently travel on the highway for your commute. It’s also great when you’re parallel parking because when you indicate shows you just how close your vehicle is to the curb, so you’re not curbing these beautiful wheels. Your door handles, they look a little different. You may notice there’s no button on them. Instead, there’s these three ridges. Essentially, this is a sensor, and I’m triggering the sensor right now. Pardon the beeping. As long as you have your key on you or your smartphone that may be connected to your digital key, you simply reach for the handle. And as again, as long as either device is on you, it’ll unlock for you. And when you’re done driving, you’ll press on it to lock it. So it, pardon me, it is a keyfree experience in the sense that you don’t have to dig for your key each time you want to get in and out of your car. On our pillars, you’ll notice they’re gloss black in their finish with with a nice tone of satin chrome running along our upper band. Reminding myself not to trip. I was so close to falling on camera because for a second I didn’t think about this. On the passenger side, we have our charge port. So, this vehicle will have two fuel doors, one for electric fuel, the other for gas. Now, with our charging. This is a level two charger. It’s a 220 or 240 volt. You can get this installed in your home if you want, but it is not necessary. We happen to be filming at a dealership where there’s already one installed, so it’s convenient. If you do have a charger at home and it’s a level two, you can expect a full charge in as little as 2 hours because for 2025, we have a more powerful onboard charger in this vehicle. So, from 2 and 1/2 hours in the previous gen to now just straight two hours. However, like I said, you don’t need to install a proper charger in your home. You can get by with the charger that’s provided with the car. I’ll show you guys that in a second. Now, quick look at the rear of the vehicle. Like I mentioned earlier on, we have full LED tail lamps. I’m not going to go back in and turn it on right now, but if you guys do want to see it, let me know in the chat and I can always do it after. But we have a dark housing surrounding giving it that dark contrast look. The Hyundai emblem is hidden inside the glass and then our rear wiper is hidden underneath our spoiler. So, not only does this tidy up the look of the rear end, it also prevents ice and snow from building up on your rear wiper when it’s not in use when that’s one less thing to scrape come snow, which is very soon. For a highmounted stop lamp, again, it’s also integrated into the spoiler. And then the spoiler itself is body color with black for its housing. Going to open up the liftgate next where we will talk space. So, the Tucson is a five-seater only. If you guys are watching from Europe, I know you guys have the Tucson in the Sportage, but you have a shorter wheelbase. Ours is the full size Tucson. So, behind our rear seats, we have a ton of usable cargo space. The floor loading height is not too high, so if you are lugging, you know, heavier things into your vehicle, you’re not doing too much of a workout. And of course, if you are, use your legs, not your back. And the best part is this power lift gate doesn’t just open when you press that button or have the key fob on you. It also has a proximity function. So, as long as you walk up to it with said key fob, you don’t have to dig it out of your pocket and press the liftgate button. It’ll sense your proximity and automatically open if you stay standing still for 3 seconds. If I were to step away, it would stop its opening sequence, but if I were to come right back again, it would open for me. So, very convenient. You don’t have to kick a sensor or anything like that. It is just red based off proximity. If you need more space and there’s no one sitting in the rear, you can knock the seats down. Each side will have its own tether that releases the seat and allows it to fold forwards. Now, it is a 60/40 split. I’ve of course knocked down the 60 portion. 40 is still upright and it does go down lower. I just have it caught on the seat ahead of it a little bit so it didn’t get go down all the way. Really horrible demonstration, I know. Now, underneath the floorboard on the PHEV, there is not going to be too much space. We do have a tire mobility kit, and clearly there is no room for an actual spare tire, unless you wanted it to be in your proper cargo area. We do, however, have our level one charger included with the vehicle. And here’s where things get really exciting, and I’m happy to share something with you guys. So, I have recently partnered with Brford Hyundai. I mean, I’ve always been partnered with them, kind of work for them, but they’ve given me this vehicle to drive for a while. So, extended test drive videos coming soon, as well as how far can I go on one single gas tank with the plug-in hybrid. Because if you didn’t know, at home, I happen to have one of those. That is a wall outlet. And quite honestly, a wall outlet on a 15 amp circuit within range of this cord and your vehicle, that’s all you need. So, I can plug this vehicle in at home. It has 50 just over 50 km of range and my commute to work is 45 km. So, hypothetically, I’m thinking I can go over a month without putting a full tank of fuel on a full tank of fuel. Let me know what you guys think and I’m most certainly doing a video on it. Anyway, back to this charger. Comes with the car. plugs in, of course, to our charge port. And then the other portion is your typical threeprong outlet. So, no special wiring needed. You don’t have to call up your electrician. As long as your circuit is capable of 15 amps, there’s nothing else on it, you are safe to charge this vehicle in your garage or if you have an exterior port in your home, too. As long as it’s, of course, a weatherproof port, you are a okay. Very happy about that. It’s typically considered an overnight charge. I mean, I would say about 9 hours. So, you know, you get home from work or get home from doing your errands, plug it in, and then the next day you have a full range of EV drive. Now, that’s not to say you only have 50 km to get to where you need to go, because at the end of the day, this vehicle still has an engine and it still consumes fuel. So, on the driver’s side is where we’ll find our fuel door, and that will hide a 42 L fuel tank. So, a smaller fuel tank than what we see on the typical regular hybrid or even the gas variation of the Tucson. That means it will be cheaper to fill up this car. It’s also going to be more efficient because we have that larger battery capacity that can provide over 50 km of electric range. So, when I’m sitting in stop and go traffic, that’s EV. If I charge my vehicle and I’m driving to work, under 50 km, that’s EV, too. There’s the odd time where the gas engine will kick in and that’s often if you absolutely floor it because it needs that extra boost. But also, if it’s a very very cold day and you’re cranking the heat, there’s a good chance that an engine might come on just to get to temperature and then once you get to temp, it can rely on its EV range again. So, very very exciting. I’m happy to be able to drive this vehicle and I’m so so pumped to be able to test it in real world conditions. Now, before I hop in, I want Adam to give a quick pan of the interior. And here’s where things get very luxurious. So for our interior, most specifically the seating material, we have a leather finish. This is showcased, of course, in black today. Both your driver and passenger seat will not only be powered, but they’re also heated and ventilated with three different levels between the two. For driver comforts, we have a lot. One of my favorite things, and this is the first time I’m ever really driving a vehicle with memory seats. I’m kind of pumped to do that. I mean, no one else is going to be driving the car, so I guess memory seats aren’t that important to me, but it’s pretty cool hopping in, starting the car, and have everything saved. So, your two memory seat buttons here, but you actually have six different saves. We have a Bose premium sound system with eight speakers. And then for the door card materials, if you opt for the black interior, you can expect a lot of black, but there is the nice touch of this fabric insert, the gloss black shine, and then of course, we have our typical mirror and window controls all placed along the driver’s grasp on your door card here. I will say I’m very happy that only this portion of the door has piano black. The buttons themselves are just a typical solid black. So, where you’re actually touching or putting your fingerprints shouldn’t be too too difficult to keep clean. The left hand side by my driver’s knee will have a satin chrome line that we can follow all the way across the dash. Kind of works its way nice and seamless. And then underneath, we have a couple buttons. One for adjusting the brightness of both your dash and your display, as well as your liftgate release, your traction control, your fuel door button, and then your parking brake. It is an electronic parking brake. Now, 2025 models have this fingerprint scanner. You can opt in or out of this. Totally up to you. I chose not to do it, but essentially, if you do share this vehicle with another driver, maybe it’s your partner or your friend. When you scan your fingerprint, it just jumps you directly into your driver profile. So, all of your radio stations, your navigation addresses, your Bluetooth devices, even your memory seat profiles will be saved to that select account. Some people never use this, but it is there. And hey, why not? Now, steering wheel wise, we have a leather wrapped and heated wheel with two different levels of heat. Burning hot and hot. Just kidding. It’s not burning. Heated steering wheel is something I’ve missed so much. And quite honestly, between this and the heated seat, I think that’s what I’m most excited for. And not spending $200 a week on gas. Those are probably my my top three excitements for this vehicle. Anyway, back to the car, though. On the lefth hand side, we have our driver assistance functions. So, with these buttons, I can go ahead and turn on or off my smart cruise control, which automatically translates to highway driving assist if we are on a proper highway. And then we can set our speed with the plus and the minus. And then set our following distance. Our lights went off with this button here. This button will allow you to cycle between four of the preset options and just get you closer or further from the car ahead of you based off whatever your comfort level is. On the right hand side, or to the right, we have our steering assistance. So, by pressing this button, I can turn our lane following assist either on or off. And then with these two buttons up at the top, just going to wake the car up. I can use this notepad button to cycle between what’s displayed in the center. So, right now I have our range, but I can also see our nav route, our lane safety, and then cycle between all of our other available menus. So, again, this to change the menu, this to cycle between the different views within said menu. I’ve already set my theme for the gauge clusters to the sport styling, even if you’re not in sport mode. That’s just my personal preference. But that’s the whole great thing about this car. There’s so much customization you can do to make it really yours, and it doesn’t really affect anything. There is also the improvement. In the past, if you had a hybrid or plug-in hybrid, you often didn’t see a proper tachometer. Instead, you would always see the hybrid or EV variation of a tachometer, which showed your eco band, your charge band, and your power band. So, now you get the option for having a proper tachometer on each display if you want, or only having select drive modes displaying a tachometer. So, that is a big improvement in my books. Another nice touch for the techsavvy or tech lovers is the inclusion of the heads-up display. Now, the height and the angle as well as the brightness of your heads-up display is integrated into your driver profile. So, if again you have separate drivers in your household, you can fumble or change drivers fairly easily without fumbling through all the settings each time. Now, to the right, it’s where we’ll find our gear shift. So, we have our shift by wire. As long as your foot’s on the brake, you can tip it forwards for drive, downwards for reverse, and then P at the end for park. Here’s a view of it from over here. And we also have paddle shifters mounted on the rear. So, this left paddle shifter will be to downshift if you’re in sport mode, while the right will be to upshift. You have a six-speed transmission, so work through all six of those gears. However, if you’re in eco mode or smart mode, using your left paddle shifter will actually slow you down and increase the amount of regen. There are three different ranges of regen. So, level one, or I guess technically four, level zero, level one, level two, and level three with level three being the strongest. There is also another secret menu or secret option and that is smart regen or auto. In order to turn on auto, you’ll simply press and hold on the left paddle shifter, the minus paddle shifter. And eventually your screen I can’t do it now because the vehicle is not in drive will give you an indicator that auto has been selected. Just making sure I can either do it or not. No, I can’t. Auto will essentially view the vehicles ahead of you, the road slope, and adjust the amount for you. So, if it senses you’re in a high dense traffic area, it’ll have it set to a higher level of regen so your vehicle slows down a little bit more intense versus if you’re on a country road or the highway, you probably want it on a low level so you can properly coast and not have that stopping motion, that resistance. Now, for our center display, the ultimate trim level will give you the integrated navigation to your CCMC software. And I know those are big words. If you’re not a Hyundai person, you may not understand what they mean, but let me explain. This software that’s displayed here, very futuristic, very modern, yet still simple, easy to understand, is called CCNC. And this started actually fairly recently for the Tucson. One of the huge improvements of this software was we now have the inclusion of wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which let’s be honest, it’s really nice in this time of this this age. Now, on the left over here, you can see we have a quick glance at our map. And this is Hyundai’s in-house navigation. Very easy to understand. Of course, you can save favorite addresses, home, work, you know, your contacts, that kind of thing. Right now, we just have our little side menu open as well. So, easy to navigate. But I know a lot of you guys like using the maps from your phone, and that’s why the wireless CarPlay Android Auto is very convenient. You can pull up your Google Maps, your Apple Maps, and even have the directions projected onto your heads-up display. I tried that this morning. Both Google Maps and Apple Maps work for me. I have an Apple phone, so very handy. Now, as for the remaining bits of what we see on the screen here, there’s a lot we can go through. There’s a lot we can skip, but the PHV menu is quite handy if this is your first time driving a plug-in hybrid. It essentially shows you what is going on within your vehicle. Now, the car is currently on accessory mode, not actually in a drivable state. So, we’re not going to see any power shifts here. However, if I was accelerating very hard or didn’t plug in my car, we would see energy largely flow from the engine to the wheels. Versus, if I had a range in my vehicle and I chose to drive an EV, you would see power flow from the battery to the wheels. When you slow down, the wheels will charge the battery. So, it’s not just a motion of everything going towards the wheels. Sometimes your wheels or you’re slowing down, your resistance is actually charging your car. And that is the beauty of regen braking. Again, that resistance, that slowdown turns into the kinetic energy which is then stored and you can use it later to drive your car and it’s not using your mechanical brakes. So, extended brake life, less engine use, better fuel efficiency, getting quite a few wins for the plug-in hybrid, you guys. Now, let’s talk about what we have underneath. And of course, I will answer some questions at the end of this video, too. We have our push to start ignition back lit with the blue lamp. We have our vents running across. And then just below that, some physical dials and buttons. My favorites. So for media and just controls for your main screen, you have real buttons. They almost look like toggles, but they are proper buttons. You have a two knob and then your volume knob on the left with the hazards right in the center. Below that, here’s where things get a little bit different. We have two dials for our climate. So, dual zone climate control both between driver and passenger as well as a driver only function for those commutes where it’s just you. For the actual, you know, fan adjustments or turning on your heated seats, heated steering wheel. This is a screen. However, you do get audible feedback. So, anytime you make a change, you do get the confirmation that something was done, which is quite handy. You can also use your voice to say, “Hey, heat my driver’s seat level three.” That kind of thing. You can also use it to change the ambient light color. So, you’re not going to be distracted while you’re driving this car. Everything can be done very, very simply. Underneath that, two USBC’s. The one on the left for charging and connectivity. The one on the right simply for charging. And then we have our 12volt inverter. You may have noticed that I have Oh my gosh. There we go. Um, you may have noticed that I have changed the ambient lighting in this vehicle to a lovely shade of pink red. It’s what I like to call it. So, the underglow does go here by the charging area. There is also a small shelf here with almost a rubber-l like surface. So, if you do put anything here and you make a sharp turn, it shouldn’t fly around. It’s a pretty pretty grippy surface. There is an elevated center console with large cup holders, a wireless phone charger, and then your drive and terrain mode selects. So, you press here to choose between drive and terrain. And then you’ll use the toggle to the right for mode either upwards or downwards to select between those options. So, eco, sport, and my drive for your drive modes. And then for terrain, we have snow, mud, and sand. Mud and sand have a 50/50 all-wheel drive torque distribution. And snow mode is a bit more of an 8020. However, it can go down to 50/50 if you’re driving slowly and you are properly stuck. Like I mentioned earlier, the vehicle does have sensors all throughout. If it notices that power is not being delivered nearly enough to the rear, it adjusts it or redistributes it redistributes it automatically. Now, I want to show you guys our center console before we take a look at what we have up above. We have a fairly deep center console and it is covered, so it is a proper proper private space. And then up above, a giant panoramic sunroof. Now, the glass opens to about here. The car was just rained on, so I’m slightly afraid. Ah, we should be okay. Feel like a little hair wash day, you know. All right, so we’re about here. Bingo. And you can also tilt it if you’re not a fan of too much air coming in. If you want everything to be covered, the power cover is powered. That was redundant. The cover is powered and retracts all the way. You do have a bright headliner, too, which always gives the illusion of a bit more space. Now, for our lamps, we have LED interior lighting. Our button for our roadside assistance as well as our SOS. And then your driver or rearview mirror is going to be auto dimming with Home Link integrated. The home link integration in the auto dimming mirror is exclusive to the ultimate trim level as well. And speaking of exclusive to the Ultimate trim, I’m going to have Adam hop out of his seat so we can show you guys the controls for the passenger because a power passenger seat is one of those exclusive add-ons. So, we have quite a few different adjustments over here. We have our back rest and then we also, of course, have the bottom of the seat. You can move it closer or further from the dash, but you can also raise it and tilt it to give you a bit more of an angle, however you like to sit best. Like I mentioned earlier, both the driver and passenger up the front have three different levels between heat and ventilation. So, regardless of the temperature, I mean, here in Canada, we get extreme hot and extreme cold, you’ll be comfortable in the Tucson. Now, let’s check out the back seats. Now, I’m sure there’s a few things I’m missing. There’s quite a few safety features on this vehicle that I would love to point out to you guys. We’ll probably wrap those up, summarize them towards the end of the video. And there’s also a few specials going on for the Tucson as well, too. Some of them are exclusive to a certain dealership, Frankfurt Hyundai. I’m going to share that with you guys in a few minutes. So, for rear seats, I do have my driver’s seat in its relax or easy access position. That means when I turn the car off and exit, it recines backwards far far more back. Adam just hit his head on the car and the lights shut off at the same time. Wow, today is a day. Okay, so this seat is far further back than how it would be when I’m driving. So, this is a better image for rear leg room. As far as the seats go, your two main seats are going to be heated with two different levels, both high and low, with the controls being found on the door card. The door card itself has the same finishes that we saw up at the front, so they’re not being left behind in style. We have a bottle holder on the bottom, the leather touches on the armrest, and then the piano black surrounding your window and heated seat control. Your door handles are also painted in silver, so some brightness, easier to find in the dark. And then as far as lighting back here goes, of course, we have LEDs, too. They are mounted by your handles. I won’t say the full name of them, but they are handles. Now, in the very center, we have our cup holder armrest. And a great thing about these seats is you do have the choice to recline them if you’d like. So right now I have it set to the max level of recline. With this sunroof open, or at least the cover open, I still have a clear view of what’s up ahead. So scenic for a long drive. And then of course I can put it in a more upright position. As far as headroom wise, as far as headroom goes, we have a very good amount of headroom. I’m definitely not the tallest person, but you can put someone who’s 6 foot back here and they should not complain. Maybe not in the middle seat, but one of the main seats, they will be just fine. Leg room, again, heels may not be the best, but I can put my feet underneath the seat ahead of me. I have plenty of room to move around if I need to stretch out a little bit, and my knees are nowhere near touching the seat in front of me. If I want to plug in my phone, there is two USBC’s back here. They’re both back lit, too, so finding it at nighttime shouldn’t be a problem. And then you have two air vents mounted behind your center console. There are mesh pockets built into the back of both the driver and passenger front seats. And I feel like that’s about it for over here. I mean, it is a very, very spacious rear seat. Good for adults, good for kids, good for car seats, too. You do have car seat anchors and tethers for your two main seats with an anchor or sorry, the tether itself on the back of your middle seat. Now, I’m going to take some time to answer some of your guys’ questions, as well as talk about some of the uh offers that are going on for the Tucson right now. So, as of now, the 2026 Tucson is technically out. However, it is a carryover model year. So, you’re not really gaining anything by getting a 2026, except maybe, you know, the dealership you’re looking at has the Tucson you want in the color you want for a 26, they don’t have it in a 25, then there’s an advantage. But for remaining inventory of 2025 units, and there’s still a good amount, you can get $1,500 off for the plug-in hybrid exclusively, as well as a set of free winter tires. Tires, not the rims, and 1% off a your finance rate at Brford Kia. Brford Hyundai. Oh my goodness, you guys. I’m shooken up. I wasn’t here yesterday. It’s been a while since I did a live stream. I am shookth. But let me let me redo that. All right, so Hyundai Canada is offering $1,500 off the Tucson Plug-in Hybrid Ultimate, of course. And then if you are shopping in Ontario, Brford Hyundai is the dealership to shop at because they are also giving a free set of winter tires. Just the tires, not the rims, but still great deal, as well as 1% off your finance rate. So, there is quite literally never been a better time to get a Tucson plug-in hybrid. And I’m quite excited to test drive this vehicle. I mean, I talk about it all the time. I know it’s so good on paper, but how is it going to perform in my day-to-day and can I really save on fuel? I mean, you guys could probably throw me in any car ever, and I would save on fuel compared to what I personally drive, but I think it’ll be really exciting to see if I can go a month without needing gas for this car. I’m pretty sure I can do it because I can charge at work and I can charge at home. I um might want to break down some of the differences between plug-in hybrids and regular hybrids. again, maybe even in a separate video. But for a quick summary, a plug-in hybrid can make a lot of sense for you if you are someone who does a commute of under again 50 km because you can cover that entire drive on electric range. Now, of course, your car might have to tap into the gas engine here or there, but it’s not going to be anything crazy and you’re still going to be far more efficient than a regular hybrid at that point. If you also have a place to plug it in, so whether that be at work or at home, if you can plug it in almost every day or enough to, you know, allow for the kind of driving that you do, it’s a pretty big win, you guys. Now, there is a fairly large price jump to get the plug-in hybrid over the regular hybrid. That $5,500, I’m not going to lie to you and say it’s nothing. That is a a large sum of money. That is the cost of my truck entirely. Um, but with this rate reduction, with the $1,500 off and the fuel savings, if you can really use that electric range every single day, you you can get some of that. You can get some value from that for sure. And I’m going to prove it to you guys. Um, I’ve seen how you drive, Gabby. Not sure you’ll save much on fuel. The guys, that is so far behind me. Every time I drive a car now, anytime I drive a modern vehicle instead of my personal car, I’m like, “Wow, this thing’s peppy.” I look at the specs, it’s 113 horse. I’m like, “Wow, this is peppy.” The standard the standards for I mean horsepower for me are so low now that anything over what 50 is impressive. Um, excited for the PHV content. My lease should go up until 2027. I’m considering doing a swap next year though, but if I wait until it expires Oh, it went away. and get it used, it might be a better option. Again, with who knows what the market’s gonna look like. I have no idea. But if you really do love your vehicle, maybe it will be worth just buying out. If you want to get something new, though, then I would definitely do some research. Do the research now to kind of get a feel for what makes sense and what you do like, and then when the time comes, you can make a a proper informed decision. Um, okay. There’s a talk between Ro and Henry KT. Something about sound dampening. Uh, I don’t know where that conversation started, so I can’t comment on that. Um, Gabby, I need an Elantra NTCR. Can you get me a price? I can absolutely work on that for you, Ryan. Thank you. I am heading over to our Hyundai store after this video so I can check in with them. Um, favorite ride in the LA Auto Show. I’m not going to lie, you guys. The Crater concept by Hyundai was insane. That car was really cool. I know it’s just a concept, but hey, the Ionic 6N was also a concept in 2023, and now it’s a real car, so who knows? Who knows? Um, Gabby, can you charge the PHV to less than 100%, for example, to max 90? Is there a benefit to charge less? So, you can have it stop charging earlier if you want, but I would say really no. The big thing that we talk about when it comes to battery electric vehicles and rules of charging them, it largely applies to people that use DC fast chargers. Now, this vehicle is not capable of DC fast charging. You can do level two charging. That is the maximum and that is about 2 hours, but it’s not getting that high high high high voltage charging that a public DC fast charger would or that a regular electric vehicle would do. So you are not inherently hurting hurting anything more by plugging it in to 100%. If you’re using that range, it it’ll be okay. It’ll absolutely absolutely be okay. Um but if you want to do it lower, you absolutely can. That is up to you. Um would you say this is equivalent to the N Hyundai Tucson if it existed? Kind of what what Toyota did? No. No, I don’t think so. Um, I think this is definitely in a league of its own. It’s going to be a stylish, comfortable, luxurious plug-in hybrid vehicle where usually Hyundai and their end vehicles are more geared towards, you know, performance enthusiasm. Um, you’re going to have those more sporty accents within the car, the red striping, the checkered flags on your door sills, and this car is just going to go for a bit more of a premium finish versus performance finish. Um, how seamless is the transition between the electric motor and the 1.6 6 liter turbocharged gas engine under hard acceleration. And is the extra power noticeable compared to the standard hybrid model? So, I definitely know I definitely notice um I was thinking of just a regular gas model. Between the hybrid and the plug-in hybrid, I have to be totally honest. I haven’t driven them back to back at all really. Maybe I should, but I find both of them to be quite punchy. There’s definitely no delay in performance for either of them. I also find both of them to be fairly quiet. So, even though this one does have that rated electric range, I don’t notice a huge increase in noise or even feel in the gas pedal when it does switch over to our IC or gasoline engine. So, I think there is a very very smooth shift between the two. This vehicle also did such a great job with just the sound deadening material. So, improvements to our the materials in our firewall, but also just the glass both in the front windows and the windscreen. There is a lot of sound deadening and it does make a difference. Um, what is the Kia or Hyundai vehicle that has the fastest charge time? So, that would be the vehicles on our EGMP platform. So, things like the Ionic 5, the EV6, those can do from 10 to 80% in about 18 minutes for our 77.4 kWh lithium ion polymer electric battery. That’s always fun to say. And, um, anything with a larger battery capacity will take slightly longer. So, even things like the Ionic 9 or the EV9, you’re around 25 minutes on those cars. Let’s see. Anything else, you guys? It’s faster than the inline version in terms of horsepower. That is correct. So actually the 0 to 100 of this vehicle and by 100 I mean kilome/h not miles per hour is 7.7 seconds which is not bad considering again this is not a performance vehicle. Performance in the sense of efficiency absolutely but it is not you know a sports car. It’s a sports utility vehicle. Um for fuel efficiency we do have a combined rated. So that is gasoline plus electric range. So when you’re plugging the vehicle in, but also um driving it with fuel of about 6.7 L per kilometers. That’s also highway and city. And then we have I believe it’s 3.2 L equivalent for just simply electricity. Now again, this vehicle does win over the hybrid in the sense of we have EV range. So if you’re driving less than 50 km a day or one way, you can do that all on EV and not use that much fuel. And again, you guys, I have a 74 liter tank on my pickup truck. I’m spending almost $200 a week on gas. So, even if I was financing this vehicle, would still I feel like I would still be spending less money. So, depending on what you’re driving, this could save you a lot of money. And right now, with the incentives we got going on, I think it’s the best time to do it. Definitely the best time to buy it. Um, Gabby deserves to go home early today. She’s fighting on valiantly. Yeah, you guys, I got yesterday I was feeling so unwell. I’m not at my best right now, but I hope you guys can notice my excitement for this car. Notice the value of this vehicle. And um, if you have any questions or anything you want me to test in the next, you know, few months that I may be driving this, let me know in the comments down below. I’m curious to see what you guys have to
The Tucson PHEV has it all! Fuel efficiency, many features, and a standout design. Join Gabi for a tour of this premium SUV in today’s live!
Do you like the Tucson’s look? Let us know in the comments!
Quick specs: 2025 Tucson PHEV Ultimate
• MSRP: $52,899• Colour: Crystal White
• Engine: Smartstream 1.6L Turbo-GDI 16-valve 4-cylinder engine
• Transmission: 6-speed automatic transmission
• Horsepower: 268hp | Torque: 258 lb-ft
• Drive type: All-Wheel Drive (AWD)
Ultimate Package add-ons:
• Highway driving assist
• Leather seating surfaces
• LED headlights (Premium, projector type)
• Surround View Monitor
• Ventilated front seats
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