What’s the new Santa Fe hiding behind its new elegant style? It is not only about looks, after all.
After being a reliable – just good enough – SUV, Hyundai Santa Fe stunned everyone with its radically new exterior styling. Abandoning all the curved lines for the more authoritative and commanding straight lines. Yes, last July, Santa Fe was elevated to the rank of status symbol, leaving the gray forgettable area of convenience SUVs.
But is it just that? A shell? What does the new Santa Fe have to offer, besides the incredible new skin? Well, apparently, it has a lot! Hyundai made sure their new flagship is filled to the brim with new revolutionary features, each of them described as best-in-class or first-in-class.
Digital Key 2 - You Can’t Forget Your Car Keys Again
Your smartphone has a new role to play, the new Digital Key 2 allows you to remotely control your vehicle, open the door, start the engine, and more. To make this possible Hyundai used several technologies; Near-field Communication (NFC), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Ultra-wideband (UWB) all for the goal of ensuring smooth seamless functioning. Digital Key 2 functionality can be shared by the primary owner with 3 other trusted users. And it works with all iPhone versions, plus some select Samsung phones.
Driving & Cleaning At The Same Time
Most of us are uncomfortably aware of how dirty our car interiors can get, it is a fact that we can’t accept, but we’re often forced to tolerate it, mainly for lack of easy cleaning solutions. Sometimes you just wish you had a faucet and wash basin incorporated into your dash. But you never expect your car to clean for you, right?
Well, Hyundai thinks differently, meet the UV-C sterilization tray. Designed to clean the prime suspects in bacteria transmission, your phone and wallet, and other small, frequently used items. As the name suggests, the tray uses UV light to kill harmful bacteria and completely disinfect these items.
As good as the UV-C sterilization tray might be, it’s still incapable of cleaning the most exposed surface of the car; the surrounding dashboard. To protect that, you need some high-quality custom-made dash covers from Coverking.
King-Sized Tailgate – Is This A Motorhome?
The Santa Fe is breaking some records here, the new car boasts the largest tailgate opening in its class. To accommodate that, Hyundai designers placed the taillights unusually low and equipped the gate with unusually long hydraulic struts.
The idea here is to create as much room as possible out back, opening a whole new range of possibilities, and turning the car’s rear side into a versatile space, capable of accommodating various activities rather than just being a storage space or baggage department. So instead of looking for a trunk big enough to hold your tent, now you can just use the trunk as a tent.
The extra room is not exclusive to the tailgate, all seat rows also benefited from additional legroom, the second row for example has an additional 1.37 inches of space more than the previous model. The third row is also the largest in its class, with a full 30 inches space. All of this is possible thanks to the extended wheelbase, which is now extended to 110.8 inches compared to the previous 108.9.
This undoubtedly opens up a lot of floor space that you can not simply clean or cover with everyday products, if you’re considering a new Santa Fe, you might as well start thinking about some custom-made floor mats and cargo liners.
Thrones instead of seats
As if the additional legroom is not enough, Santa Fe also offers specially designed seats for each row. At the front, we have what the company describes as a seat that “simulates a weightless experience”. This translates into a relaxation seat with leg rest, which is probably very similar to the one we find on the Ioniq 5.
As you may imagine, this kind of seat is incredibly expensive and hard to replace, and being the car’s most exposed element to wear and tear, it’s a good idea to invest in some high-quality custom-made seat covers, just to enjoy the comfort of these seats for many more years.
Driver Condition Monitoring And Safety Features
Now, we’ve become familiar with driver monitoring systems on almost all new cars, it’s nearly 2024 after all, and we can no longer tolerate sleeping at the wheel. Santa Fe takes this one step further, in addition to the usual attention sensors, the car is also equipped to monitor four primary vital signs.
It is still not exactly clear how this is going to work, but Hyundai announced that the car will be able to measure body temperature, respiration rate, pulse rate, and blood pressure. This kind of detailed monitoring is a first in North America, and it’s bound to be very popular, especially among drivers prone to road rage.
Bilateral Multi-Console
This may sound like a minor and marginal detail, but in our opinion, it is as revolutionary as the features listed above, having a central console that can be opened from both sides solves a lot of problems for backseat dwellers, you don’t have to throw everything in the door bin anymore, now you can store your stuff neatly and easily in the central console just like the people at the front do.
The all-new Santa Fe promises to be an extremely successful car, especially in the North American market, where we have a special place in our hearts for large, elegant, and advanced vehicles. The car successfully joined inner and outer beauty, making a lot of our dreams come true.
