There could be countless case studies to write on the strategy of Hyundai. From its U.S. debut in the late 80’s with the Excel, that I’m sure Hyundai execs would rather you forget, Hyundai made its first name for itself as cheap. Cheap in price and cheap in quality. Ah the difficulties of overcoming first impressions and how they persist, despite lack of first hand experience for many consumers. The 2011 Sonata made people take notice of the brand again. This time for style and the era of overdelivering on features and content relative to its mainstream competitors. But it was still hard for the brand to charge prices at or near the likes of a Honda or Toyota, even with the stronger list of features. Yes, Genesis, first the model and now the brand, has pushed itself upward, but the Palisade is truly the H-brand’s game changer.
Sure the formula continues, style and design, along with a hefty list of features, but the price point of the Palisade doesn’t shy away from parity or exceeding its ultra competitive segment brethren. When it launched for the 2020 model year, the Palisade was a grand slam, almost immediately waitlists (and dealer markups) grew, and this was before the weird supply chain issues started to impact every vehicle and availability. Demand was strongest for the then top of the line Limited trim, whose price was around $47,000. Sales surged past 80,000 units in its first full year on sale and have continued to stay strong. It’s still a far cry from the 200,000+ Highlanders and Explorers that Toyota and Ford chunk out, but make no mistake that the Palisade, and corporate cousin Kia Telluride have firmly pushed the idea of a desirable $50,000 Korean vehicle into the minds of car shoppers across America.
The Palisade hits a sweet spot for style, interior size and space, drivability, comfort, luxury and substantial value. That’s just part of why it’s been so hard to find one on dealer lots for nearly three years now. Let the next Hyundai case study take note here.
With sky high demand, you would think that Hyundai would be content to let its new found cash cow continue to rake it in, but then you wouldn’t know what happens in the twin towers just south of the ritzy Gangnam district of Seoul. The busy bees in those buildings aren’t known to sit around and let products get stale. For 2023 the Palisade receives a bit of a nip/tuck front and back and updates inside too. The front end gets a more squared off “cascading” grille that looks much cleaner and helps adapt a new rugged XRT trim as well. Love the updated design inside the Calligraphy with its chevron stitched leather, much more contemporary than the rounded quilting from before.
Inside there’s a clean and #openconcept design up front. Maybe not as open as the new IONIQ 5, but the dashboard and center console house easy and well-grouped controls. The space in the console itself can be a wide open box, or you can pop out individual cupholders as needed. There’s no shortage of luxury here in the Calligraphy trim, with a new massaging driver’s seat and new heated third row seats to go with the heated and cooled first and second row seats, power folding third row, digital rear view mirror and so on. There are even dual exterior auto-dimming mirrors, when many brands have been omitting the passenger side dimming for years now. This is stuff that’s hard to find in many luxury branded 3-row utilities, let alone one that rings up for under $55,000 as equipped. Really appreciate the power sunshade on the rear sunroof, this is in contrast to the Kia Carnival which has a similar arrangement, but a manual shade on the rear unit. With the power control, I could re-close the shade over the kids without having to pull over.
While I stand by my belief that minivans are truly the best 3-row family haulers on the market, the customers have spoken and 3-row SUVs are the decided family hauler of choice right now. (But seriously, if you need 3-rows of human sized passengers AND cargo behind that, get a minivan.) That said, the Palisade does an amazing stand-in role for big family hauling duties while still fitting garages and standard parking spaces. Within a tidy 196.7″, the Hyundai magicians have carved out real passenger space in all 3-rows while preserving 18 cubic feet for cargo behind the 3rd row. Space in the 2nd row is flexible with loads of fore-aft travel for the seat to help balance legroom for the way-back folks. Helping that is a nice high seating position that allows good comfort for taller passengers, even if the 2nd row seat is pulled to its forward most position. At 6′ tall, I could easily sit comfortably behind myself in all 3 rows. and there’s plenty of space for our rear facing car seat in the 2nd row, something I can’t say about our long-term X5 – benefits of a front-wheel drive platform and transversely mounted engine.
The updated infotainment screen is crisp with 720p resolution on its large 12.3″ screen. Yes, standard Hyundai complaint of lack of wireless CarPlay still applies here unfortunately. Also noticed that if you go full widescreen, the Hyundai system pop ups, that typically show on the right 1/3rd of the screen, don’t come up. Automakers are still trying to integrate and bounce back and forth between their native and the phone tech environments. Curious to see if Hyundai also goes to a full Android Automotive Operating System route that so many others are taking.
Where things are pretty dialed in is with the comfortable and smooth, controlled ride. No it’s not set up for the most “dynamic” twists and turns, but it knows its mission for 99% of life is comfort around town and on the highway, and to that intended function the Palisade delivers. Steering likewise is a light touch, but not too slow in response to leave it sloppy. Laminated glass helps keep things ultra-quiet inside as well. I rate the Palisade well above our prior long-term VW Atlas for ride and drive.
Perhaps the similarity to the Atlas would be in power and fuel economy. With a fairly dated, large displacement V6 engine, power is simply adequate, while fuel economy was a bit middling. Rated at 19 City, 25 Highway and 21 miles per gallon combined, we saw just 17.1 MPG in our week of testing. Hyundai offers up hybrids and plug in hybrids and even electrics in all their other SUVs, but the Palisade hasn’t seen any of those on offer. Explorer, Durango and Grand Cherokee L also offer up more potent powertrains. Although I do expect Hyundai to be one of the first mainstream car companies to come to market with a full EV 3-row SUV. Hopefully that will address some of the limited shortcomings we noted in fuel economy and power.
Other minor nitpicks include no rear door lock/unlock access from the exterior door handles, rear seats don’t pivot and slide forward like some competitors to allow for car seats to remain installed (although they do a convenient one-touch slide) and no interior rear passenger cam. Would also really like to see power folding mirrors on the top-spec Palisade, especially when they’re offered on cousin Telluride. But none of these would stop me from seriously considering the Palisade for family hauler needs.
The shadow that the Palisade casts over the mainstream and even luxury SUV set can’t be ignored. Toyota finally looks to be addressing the Korean elephant in the segment with their upcoming “Grand Highlander” and we’ll have to see how the Lexus version turns out as well, but for now, the well-rounded Palisade comes out on top of a very broad and fierce competitive set. Hopefully supply improves and Hyundai dealers stop tacking on ridiculous market adjustments to allow more people to fully realize the immense value and amazing products achievement that is being presented here.
