The 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe has officially been unveiled in South Korea. Order books for the all-new Hyundai Santa Fe will open in the company’s home market tomorrow.
With the latest lifecycle makeover, the Hyundai Santa Fe has entered its fourth generation. The 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe incorporates the company’s new design language for SUVs that was introduced with the Hyundai Kona.
At the front, the all-new Hyundai Santa Fe features the Cascading front grille, a full-width chrome strip, twin-headlamps with notably slim, resculpted hood, redesigned lower air intake, redesigned bumper and new silver skid plate. The front-end is now a lot more athletic and more contemporary, a class above that of the old model.
On the sides, the 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe has a bigger DLO, something rear-seat passengers would really appreciate, more muscular wheel arches raised higher up towards the rear and redesigned mirrors. At the rear, Hyundai has redesigned everything from the tailgate to the bumper, the skid plate and the tail lamps, but the overall look is very familiar.
The interior of the Hyundai Santa Fe has taken a big leap with the latest lifecycle makeover. The dashboard looks a lot more car-like now. Those upgrading from the old model would really appreciate the oddly designed steering wheel and central air vents gone now.
The new multifunction three-spoke steering wheel and the floating screen for the new infotainment system look very similar to the Hyundai i30 (Hyundai Elantra GT). Also fully redesigned, is the dashboard, the instrument cluster with a large colour driver information display in the centre, horizontal central air vents with chrome frame, the outer-end air vents, the centre console and the floor console. The new gearshift lever is positioned closer to the driver.
The 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe features new SoundHound feature which allows the driver to identify a song and its singer and album information by simply clicking the SoundHound logo on the central display. SoundHound provides the asked information from an artificial intelligence server. There’s also a new “Voice Memo” function to record voice memos in case the driver urgently needs to note down something, say a phone number for instance.
The all-new Hyundai Santa Fe is the first vehicle ever to feature Rear Occupant Alert, a system that monitors the rear seats to detect passengers and alert the driver when leaving the vehicle. Other main safety and driver assistance features include Forward Collision-Avoidance Assist (FCA), Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) with Lane Departure Warning (LDW), Driver Attention Warning (DAW), Advanced Driver Assistant System (ADAS) and Rear Cross-Traffic Collision Warning with a new automated braking function.
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Hyundai will offer the 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe with 2.0 L turbocharged petrol, 2.0 L diesel and 2.2 L diesel engines. All engines will send drive via an 8-speed automatic transmission. As before, buyers will have an option for a 4WD system.
The 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe’s market launch in South Korea will take place later this month. Its international rollout should commence in the second half of the year. It's unknown whether the fourth-gen model will make it to India or not. The outgoing model was discontinued last year owing to poor sales.
