I will happily admit I have not been the world’s biggest fan of the recent stratospheric rise in the popularity of SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles). Being completely honest, if you don’t have children or dogs (plural) to carry around, I have questions over why you would go for a vehicle oversized to your needs.

A good hatchback or small estate will do as good a job as its high riding SUV equivalent and will use less fuel and be a better drive at the same time. At least, that’s what I thought.

At the tail end of February, I had CarsGuide’s 2026 car of the year (a Hyundai Santa Fe) on test for a week and the verdict I reached has changed my view on SUVs forever.

We had on test a Hyundai SANTA FE Hybrid Ultimate, 1.6T 239PS Hybrid 6AT, Automatic, 4WD. In layman’s terms that’s a big £55,895 petrol hybrid SUV with seven seats, a big boot, and some nice optional extras attached.

The car in question is 4.8m long, 2.2m wide, 1.72m high and comes with five doors. Boot space with the seats up is around 620litres, but with them down is anywhere between 985 to 1,949litres. So far, so practical and versatile. But there’s more.

Slot yourself into the driver’s seat and this is where the intrigue really starts. The Santa Fe’s system can remember what position you like to have the seat in and has a system where you can save your position. This means when you open the door, the steering wheel and seat move apart. When you’re in they move into your preferred position; useful if you’re switching between drivers.

The infotainment is a mixture of buttons, dials, touch screens and haptic touch pads. Most of your time using the system is through the near dash wide touch screen in front of you. In terms of ease of use it’s right up there, although adjusting the heated seats and aircon on the move is a bit fiddly with the touch pads.

Above the driver sits the controls for the panoramic sunroof and under their left elbow is a very deep and cavernous cubby hole which was big enough to fit our filming tripod. It was lined with some sort of non smooth material at the bottom, so those who like eating sweets in the car best save those for the pop out tray.

Overall, in our spec at least, I found it to be a comfortable and habitable place to be with no awkward aches after a long time at the wheel during a weekend spin to Caffeine and Machine for a coffee.

This trip was a good opportunity to have a proper look inside and marvel at the sheer number of charging stations – wired and wireless – inside the car.

The middle row of seats are, like the front, heated. Furthermore, they came with access to the cavernous central compartment and blinds that passengers can pull up above their windows.

The rear seats reveal themselves easily enough with toggles atop and behind so they can be folded out whether someone is coming from the boot or through the rear set of seats. Returning the middle row to their electrically assisted original position is a bit fiddly, but it’s not the worst system in the world.

The third row of seats comes with its own charging ports and aircon systems which is all well and good. However, it was pointed out to us by one family that if you don’t use the third row that often, having aircon that the second row passengers can’t access is a bit pointless. Something to sort out in the facelift?

This was where the Hyundai really changed my mind about the future of SUVs. Every person I talked to about the car pointed out how big and long it was.

But here’s the thing, it may look big, long, and heavy, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels through the controls like a hatchback or a small estate. Driving across London (whose potholes it handled with spine softening ease) to see friends, it was easy to forget how big a car you were in.

The car felt less like an elephant and more like an athletic and energetic golden retriever. Yes, you’re very far from the front and rear of the car, but the steering gives you very good feedback whilst being.

On the road, the hybrid system engages in a constant balancing act between charging the battery and moving you along. It can run on electric only mode for a while, but very rarely hangs around in there for very long. There are driving modes, but honestly just leave it in Eco and ignore Sport. There are terrain modes, showing there are some off road contingencies in place for when we return to winter.

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that the car looks and feels genuine, it’s really not about being sporty at all. Yes, the engine pulls well, but it doesn’t look sporty and it isn’t sport, and that’s the point. It pulls off the cool, boxy styling schtick better than Land Rover’s Defender, and it’s rather comfortable. On the road it’s not exciting to drive, but it corners very flat; there’s a little low speed understeer, but that’s to be expected.

It won’t win lap time tests or set B roads alight, but that’s not what it’s for; its family focused. Even the dreaded lane assist (the most pointless feature in modern cars) isn’t that intrusive, so much so I didn’t always feel the need to turn that blasted thing off all the time.

Is the Hyundai Santa Fe perfect? No. I do feel the amenities of the third row of seats should be moved to the second row, or at least the second row should have the same options as the third.

The haptic touch pads should be replaced by buttons, and the four cylinder engine sounds very stretched when it’s revved hard or charging the battery. There were several occasions when I was in town at sub 20mph speeds and the battery is 50 percent, but the engine is still charging it and I thought ‘Why isn’t it waiting until the battery is at 20 percent to start charging?’.

In the grand scheme of things these are only very little problems to consider; and it has changed my mind that SUVs aren’t all leaning too much towards the S side of the acronym. If you’re looking for a capable family SUV that isn’t German or British, give this a look.

Christopher’s verdict: 7.5/10