MSRP: $35,300
Hey guys today we are driving the 2021 hyundai sonata hybrid this is one of the most fuel efficient sedans on sale today right up there with the toyota camry hybrid and the honda accord hybrid very excited to share this vehicle with you guys today and show you what it is like to drive how it stacks up against its competitors we have a very attractive looking
Interior very premium feeling and it still keeps in line with a lot of the classic hyundai ergonomics and user friendly buttons knobs dials we have a slightly different powertrain for most hybrids in this class instead of a cvt we have a six-speed automatic and that is mated to a two liter inline four-cylinder engine with a combined power output between battery
And engine of 192 horsepower let’s walk you around this sonata hybrid this is the limited model that we’re in today and of course with the limited model you get the solar panel roof which i honestly think is a little bit of a gimmick but hyundai says it’s uh it’s good for a couple miles of extra driving every day on with full sun which we have not had the
Last couple days otherwise with this hybrid you get hybrid looking wheels that are supposedly a little bit more aerodynamic a lower front valence a lower front bumper and this little chrome joker joker-like smile the floor is very flat and between all those things it equates to having a .24 drag coefficient which is very impressive for a sedan very slippery
Through the air and i’m sure that helps with this vehicle’s fuel economy reading which is 51 miles to the gallon on the highway and 45 miles to the gallon in the city very good if you’re doing a lot of miles this might be a very interesting new car to consider i finally learned how to pop the rear trunk on this you press right there and it’s a little hit very
Hidden button thanks to many youtube comments on my last video we get a good amount of trunk space a spare tire a jack 60 40 folding rear seats you have no idea how proud i am of myself for remembering that and you know a slightly polarizing design when this first came out people either loved it or they hated it i think a lot of owners love the design of this
And it’s one of the one of the reasons why they buy it and i tend to like it it’s something different it’s exciting i think sedans these days need to kind of differentiate themselves in the market and sex things up a little bit and that’s definitely the case here with the sonata let’s look under the hood lots of battery high voltage stuff here and it uses zero
W16 weight oil wow that’s very light no more zero w20 they’re really getting down there all right so this is the limited model we’ve got lots of features we’ve got your head up display we have some neat little luxury items in here like this rear window screen plenty of leg room in the back the front seat is set to my driving position at five foot ten lots of
Places to put my feet a little usb charger an arm rest very nice in the back here and i do love the design on this interior it’s very sharp very sleek in the front here we’ve got all of the amenities you could want heated steering wheel heated and cooled seats climate control there’s even an option for driver only ventilation to save a little bit of fuel we
Have a few different drive modes custom sport eco smart for the most point i’ve just been driving an eco this is a hybrid after all this sonata has a very nice high resolution and uh high frame rate reverse camera which is always welcome and this transmission button selector actually is quite easy to use i like how the park button is differentiated from drive
Neutral reverse lots of black plastic here but if you use a nice microfiber it shouldn’t look too terrible in 10 years we get wireless charging lane centering highway driving assist which we’ll test later a premium bose audio system memory seats you know all the usual good good stuff that you get in your hyundai products all right let’s take this thing for a
Drive because that’s really what it’s all about very light steering and of course this being a six-speed automatic you do feel some gear shifts at low speeds when you’re in full electric mode you can hear too that this hybrid battery makes it it’s a little bit of noise at low speeds just to warn pedestrians and people around you the transition from battery
Power to the gasoline engine kicking on is very seamless you barely notice it brake pedal feels very natural and progressive you can easily manage your regen level say just above max regen with your meter there this six-speed automatic is pretty good it’s a little bit sluggish on occasion but for the most part it gives you the downshifts that you need and it’s
Definitely an eco-oriented drivetrain it’s a little bit of a different experience from the smoothness and the seamlessness of a cvt but some buyers may appreciate having a traditional torque over automatic in their hybrid we’ve got our bumpy road up here so we’ll feel what the ride quality is like personally i think it’s a little bit on the stiff side especially
At low speeds but once you get going it smooths out and the damping is pretty well tuned there’s not a lot of impact noise over bumps the eco tires soak all that up really quite well a few rattles here and there in the interior but nothing nothing too bad let’s see how this thing handles eco tires give up pretty quickly but overall cornering is flat pretty
Neutral i can hear some electronic wizardry going on keeping that front end turned in you definitely feel this car has a lower center of gravity from the last sonata and the power level is quite decent as well really no complaints there you do have to get into the higher rpms with this 2-liter to really get the power given the power band and that is where this is
Different from a cvt where you kind of have to wait for that power to come whereas with a cvt get it almost immediately wind noise at speed is kept in check pretty well i would say the accord and the camera probably a little bit quieter at highway speeds and you get these cool little side mirror camera displays when you put your turn signals on occasionally the
Infotainment and the center gauge cluster displays can be a little bit slow and laggy they take a little bit to wake up in the morning but once they do they seem to be responsive enough you just have to be kind of patient with it let’s do a sound system test here while we’re just uh tooling around here in the parking lot listen to this bose premium audio so
Foreign so i think for the price point here this bose audio is very acceptable it’s quite nice not blowing me away but it’s also i think reasonably good sounding for what you’re paying you guys will be happy to know that i have now added this sound system playlist to the main channel spotify link on the main the topher channel page so it’s also in the
Description if you want to know what these tracks are let’s see what sport mode is like so we can use the paddle shifters as paddle shifters in sport mode this is not a very responsive transmission it’s it’s kind of lazy but that’s okay we’re in a hybrid we’re not in a sports sedan as you can hear from the tires definitely feels like more than 192 horsepower
The power band is interesting because you get this initial just response from the accelerated pedal with the battery kicking in and then you have to wait for the engine to rev up all right let’s cruise on the highway we’ll engage highway driving assist if you set it to the speed limit which right now is 70 it’ll automatically adjust according to the speed limits
On the road the lane centering is fantastic of this car hyundai’s their hardware driving is one of the best on the market i think it will basically only prompt you to add steering input every 45 seconds or so you can really uh just cruise in this thing forever without really touching the wheel you do need to stay vigilant because it’s not 100 perfect but uh
Definitely one of the better systems on the market if you’re doing a ton of miles this is a car to really consider because it’s incredibly fuel efficient on the highway and it’s very relaxing and easy to drive there’s a little bit more wind noise than i would like but really that’s my only complaint about this thing on the highway it’s uh it’s otherwise quite
Good and that kind of gets into how do i feel about this sonata after spending a week in it now what’s this thing like to live with what are my final thoughts well i can’t help but feel there’s just a little bit of a discrepancy in the way this thing looks on the inside and the way it drives it definitely doesn’t feel like it’s as high quality of a product uh
As the honda accord hybrid for example or maybe even the camry it definitely feels a little bit cheaper to drive you know you get in this you see the you feel the leather you you look at the interior and look at all the the surfacing and finishing and like oh man this is going to drive like a genesis well it doesn’t it it still feels like a you know a thirty
Thousand dollar midsize uh sedan from hyundai i do think the competitors have slightly better driving feel but honestly is that something that most drivers are going to be able to discern or figure out or coming from their old car to this new car really tell i i don’t think so this is a really nice compelling package i’ve had a few issues this week with apple
Carplay though that could very well be my phone too who knows parking sensors have been a little bit buggy but for the most part this car’s been really good and and i’ve averaged around 43 44 45 miles to the gallon just hammering on it so if i were driving normally i’d definitely be over 50 which is pretty impressive for a midsize sedan i think this is just
A little bit more exciting than the traditional options from toyota and honda definitely in the looks department it it you know it’s invokes some emotion when you walk up to it and leave it and there’s kind of an italian exotic appeal to the rear end and i don’t know i think it’s a sharp looking car it’s definitely polarizing you either love it or you hate it
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder for sure and i think that kind of sums up the sonata hybrid hugely efficient quite a good daily driver you get a lot of the you know the the beautiful hyundai infotainment and screen quality here these are these displays are very nice they have beautiful contrast ratios really deep blacks they’re very sharp they can
Be a little bit sluggish when they’re cold but once everything kind of warms up it’s it feels pretty normal and when you’re just driving this thing around it’s it’s always kind of uh switching between hybrid gasoline engine mode and ev mode and it’ll do that in you know when you’re driving 45 miles an hour it’ll do that when you’re driving 70 miles an hour so
It’s always kind of going back and forth and you’ve got your little energy flow meter you can see the solar panel putting energy into the battery regen putting energy in the battery and then you’ll just see everything switch off and you’ll be running on battery only at 70 75 miles on the highway for half a mile or so and that’s kind of cool and that’s one of
The reasons why it’s so efficient i’m sure there’s a whole lot else going on in the background so i think that’s kind of all i have with this sonata hybrid lots of settings lots of customization you can do in the menu really same sonata much better gas mileage i will say if you take toyota’s hybrids they drive so much nicer and so much better than their gasoline
Six-speed automatic counterparts this sonata hybrid drives about the same as its gasoline six-speed automatic counterpart that you don’t feel like you’re in something that’s more special or more or nicer than you would for example with like a camry v6 or a camry four-cylinder versus a camry hybrid and all the accords drive amazingly well so that’s kind of why
I would put this around third place tied maybe with the camry in this segment i don’t love it as much as i do the accord the way the core drives is just so smooth and it just it feels like a higher quality item and toyota really has their hybrid technology ironed out and done very well and actually the camry gets slightly better gas mileage than this does i
Believe it’s like 51 in the city 52 on the highway or something around that range it’s over 50 which is pretty impressive and the accord is a little bit lower around 47 ish whereas this is in the 50s on the highway so you know you kind of they’re all about the same you kind of have to pick your flavor i think this the sonata offers a lot and yeah if you guys
Are interested to go take them for a test drive see what you think but uh definitely glad to spend a few days in this because it is an exciting car personally i would probably go for one of the lower trim models i’m not really sure that if you’re going to be spending 35 36 000 the solar panel roof is really worth it for the extra few miles here and there it’d
Be nicer to get a sunroof or something but we’ll leave that up to the buyers to decide it’s been really fun having a pretty wide range of vehicles to drive this year i mean just a couple weeks ago we had the gt63 and this week we have a sonata and for what this is it’s pretty good all right guys that’s it for this one thanks for watching we’ll see you next time take care you
Transcribed from video
2021 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid – POV Review By TheTopher
