Hyundai Tucson N Line 2021 review: The all-new sporty long wheelbase Hyundai SUV

CarExpert

This is the new Hyundai Tucson N Line - it's a sportier version of the regular 2021 Hyundai Tucson designed to offer unique styling and a sportier set of features. Paul Maric gets behind the wheel of the 2021 Hyundai Tucson N Line to see if the drive matches its design.  This is a pre-production car, so it may not be representative of the final product.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  Read the full review: http://car.expert/2021-hyundai-tucson-n-line-review  More Hyundai content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai More Hyundai Tucson content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai/tucson  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:49 Interior: 04:26 Infotainment: 06:10 Safety Tech: 08:00 Practicality: 08:54 On the road: 11:40 0-100 Acceleration: 14:36 On the road: 15:18 Verdict: 19:06  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #hyundai #tucson #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So the new Hyundai Tucson is about to land in Australia, but today we're getting an exclusive first look at this

00:06 Which is the Tucson N-Line. Well the N-Line package

00:09 It's going to be available on the entire Tucson range and this right here is the Highland which is at the top of

00:15 The Tucson range that is coming to Australia. Now this competes with things like the Nissan X-Trail, the Mazda CX-5, the Toyota RAV4

00:23 It is a hotly contested segment, which is why Hyundai has thrown a lot at this car. Today

00:28 We're going to do a detailed review of the new Tucson N-Line

00:31 But it'll be slightly condensed and I'll explain why in just a second. If you want to skip ahead to any other parts of this

00:36 Review you can use the time codes up on the screen there

00:39 Or if you're on YouTube just scroll down and use the chapters below and if you haven't done so already make sure you hit subscribe

00:43 Press the bell icon so you can find out every single time we get a first look at something new

00:47 Now before we talk about the exterior

00:51 I just wanted to point out where we are we're at a racetrack and that is because this is a

00:55 Production car and because Australia you're not allowed to drive this out on a public road just yet

00:59 So we've had to drive it at the confines of a racetrack

01:02 But we'll still try and get as much detail as we can into this review now. Let's start with the design

01:06 This is my first look at the Tucson in person. I've got to tell you it looks bloody good

01:11 I have seen this in pictures before and I wasn't entirely sure about it, but here in person

01:15 It really stands out nicely

01:17 Now I'll take you through all the extra bits that come with the N package first the N-Line adds

01:22 19-inch alloy wheels an exterior body kit LED headlights and taillights where they aren't already standard because remember the N-Line can be added to any

01:30 Variant of the Tucson range you also get a gloss black grille with hidden daytime running lights N-Line badges

01:35 Silver skid plates a leather and suede interior an N-Line steering wheel and the 10.25 inch cluster inside the cabin where it's not standard already

01:43 So let's go through the design highlights. This grille here is what you're getting with the N package now

01:48 They say these are hidden daytime running lights because when they're off it actually looks like just another part of the grille

01:54 So they've really integrated that nicely you get an N-Line badge there as well. It is a big old grille

01:59 They've blacked out the Hyundai badge here as well. It's kind of like a reflective material

02:04 It's not matte and it's not a piano black either

02:06 So this looks really classy

02:08 And I think this is going to take up the Tucson another notch and it wouldn't surprise me if they jacked up prices a little

02:13 Bit to justify how much more premium this feels than the current Tucson down the front here

02:17 You got the radar module a camera here, which will be for the 360 degree camera an interesting headlight array

02:23 So you've got your daytime running lights LEDs up the top

02:26 Your headlights are actually down the bottom here and they're a full set of LED headlights a little vent that goes off to the side

02:31 That's functional as well

02:33 Whip around to the side. These are the 19 inch alloy wheels that are unique to the N-Line again

02:38 You can tell it's the N-Line because you've got the N badge there. I love this design

02:42 It's kind of like a brushed chrome on the outside and a matte black on the inside

02:45 Really gives the car a good presence. The other thing I've noticed here as well is this 3d setup across the headlights

02:53 That is that is really interesting. I haven't seen that on a new car before

02:57 Okay, let's talk dimensions really quickly and we're talking about a vehicle. That's 46 30 millimeters long

03:03 1865 millimeters wide

03:06 1665 millimeters tall and sits on a wheelbase of

03:10 1555 mil and the curious thing is that Australia gets the long wheelbase version of the Tucson Europe gets a short wheelbase

03:16 So ours is bigger than the version offered overseas. That means it's 15 mil longer than a Toyota RAV4

03:22 So that should mean more interior space as I'm exploring this car. I'm discovering new things. So look at this crease line here

03:28 It's like an arrow that comes through so they've been quite adventurous there with the styling

03:32 I have also discovered my first bit of piano black here on the wing mirror. It's also here on the side sills

03:38 Hopefully that doesn't continue too much inside matte black roof rails

03:42 You've got privacy glass and then come around to the back

03:45 You've got more of that hidden LED treatment that bar runs all the way across the back there with a couple of long

03:50 Vertical bits there 1.6 T because this one here the Highlander comes with a 1.6 liter turbo and all-wheel drive

03:57 They call it H track. You've got a couple of lights down the bottom there as well

04:01 This diffuser that is sort of like a matte finish

04:04 You've got a set of two exhaust pipes down there and I quite like the design at the rear

04:09 It's got a few angles, but they haven't gone too overboard. It still looks nice and classy now

04:13 Let me know in the comments section below. What do you think of the design?

04:15 I didn't love it in pictures, but personally here in person, I think it looks fantastic. So can you get your feedback?

04:21 Do you think they've done a good job here with the design or is it too much of a departure from the current generation of Tucson?

04:26 So we are inside the new Tucson now. I did want to point out really quickly

04:29 This is a pre-production car so some of the stuff that you see here may not be in the final version such as it missing a

04:36 Panoramic sunroof, but I'll do my best just to point out the things that we see in front of us

04:40 Plus the annoying beep if you've watched our other Hyundai and Kia videos, you'll know that this is going to beep every five minutes

04:46 So I'm really sorry about that. Let's start with the key. Here it is here pretty nice-looking key actually

04:50 So lock unlock boot and then remote start has like a metallic finish to it

04:55 It's cold to the hand and then you have the Hyundai logo at the back. It's a proximity sensing key

05:00 And there is a push-button start inside the car. Now. What about the styling here?

05:04 It looks very premium is is the first impression that I get so you've got all of this soft touch material along the top

05:11 Along here and also this kind of cloth material with the red stripes

05:15 This is a big departure from the last Tucson which was I think cast out of one piece of plastic

05:20 There was a lot of hard plastics inside the cabin

05:23 This feels really upmarket and I love what they've done here. In terms of piano black though

05:28 Hmm, there is a lot of it and you can see it all around the face you hear down here

05:32 My issue with piano black is that it marks really easily it scratches really easily and I think over time

05:37 It's just not a very nice material. So a little disappointing to see that much piano black here, but it is what it is

05:43 Now, what about our touch points? They are nice and soft there

05:47 We've got our durometer here

05:48 If you do want to see how this car compares to other cars that we've tested

05:52 Scroll down and click on the link in the description. Now. What about build quality?

05:57 This is a pre-production car, but it feels nice and solid arguably

06:01 This is going to be more solid because it's probably hand-built

06:04 So we'll wait till we get our hands on a I guess final build car to test out the build quality

06:09 But it feels all pretty good from here. Okay, let's talk infotainment

06:12 So this is a new infotainment system to the Hyundai Tucson. It's a

06:17 10.25 inch unit. There's also an additional 10.25 inch unit display ahead of the driver

06:22 So today I'll give you a brief overview

06:24 If you want to see a detailed review of this click up here to see one that we've recorded previously

06:29 So let's start with the infotainment system. You can see you've got shortcut buttons down the bottom

06:33 But predominantly this is a touchscreen and then that's your home screen and then you swipe between to get to the different menus

06:39 It comes with inbuilt satellite navigation. It's actually a pretty decent unit

06:43 It's nice and fast very quick to respond and if we jump back over here, you can see the radio menu comes with

06:50 Horse racing. It has AM/FM, DAB plus digital radio

06:56 And then you also have the ability to stream through a USB device or also a Bluetooth device

07:02 You've got the sounds of nature. We first saw this in the Kia range

07:05 It's nice to see that's here to keep the kids quiet in the back

07:07 You've got the ability to record a voice memo if you get any good ideas out on the road plus quiet mode

07:13 Which keeps the noise to a low at the front and then kills it at the rear

07:16 So the kids can sleep as well. And finally you have an inbuilt manual there too. In terms of smartphone mirroring

07:22 This is going to come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Now, this is what Apple CarPlay looks like and

07:26 Then this is what Android Auto looks like

07:29 And now let's jump over to the screen ahead of the driver so another 10.25 inch display, this is really nice

07:37 It's simple. It just gives you all the information that you need

07:39 So speedometer on the left you have a tachometer on the right then you can flick through the menus on the steering wheel here to

07:45 See all the different controls that you have available to you

07:48 So this feels really high-end and premium and I think this is going to set a new benchmark in this segment

07:53 Because I don't know of any other cars that are on sale that have this kind of high-tech looking display ahead of the driver

07:59 Okay, let's move on to safety features. Important thing to have in a midsize SUV

08:03 So you have low and high speed autonomous emergency braking with reverse AEB as well

08:09 You have blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror and also into the screen here in front of the driver

08:13 Radar cruise control with a semi-autonomous steering function. You have an auto dimming rear vision mirror

08:19 Junction assist which will prevent you from merging in front of any other cars that are coming towards you and then you've also got a safe

08:26 Exit assistant that's going to warn you if any cars are approaching that you don't see. Okay, so you have front and rear parking sensors

08:32 Let's have a look at what the rear view camera looks like. I'm gonna flick the car on for that

08:36 So it's a 360 degree camera. There it is there. That's your rear view

08:40 Then you can switch between the views just on the screen there. Look it's okay

08:44 This is a similar setup to the Kia Sorento and that has a super high definition camera

08:49 So hopefully with the production version, this is going to be a little bit sharper, especially there on the 360 camera

08:53 Okay, let's talk practicality and we'll talk about connectivity first. So two USB ports down the front here

08:59 You have a wireless phone charger a 12-volt outlet

09:02 Then in terms of storage where you're going to put your phone, the phone easily sits in there

09:06 You can slot it into the wireless phone charger or on the pad at the front

09:09 What about our bottle?

09:12 Easily fits into here. There's little teeth there as well to hold it into place inside the door

09:16 You've got storage for a bottle a really generous sized center console

09:20 So you can see there it basically eats up that entire bottle

09:23 We have a glove box over here that is generously sized as well

09:27 And then we also have storage down the side here on both the driver's side and the passenger side

09:32 Now let's talk about comfort. So 64 LED light combinations for the interior, which is a nice touch

09:37 You've got heated and cooled seats for the front row, headed steering wheel, dual zone automatic climate control, electric seat adjustment

09:44 For the driver and front passenger along with memory for the driver as well. Now, what about the seats?

09:49 Well, this is the special N Line seat

09:52 So it's got this Alcantara in the middle the red stitching and then the N badge as well

09:56 Seats themselves are really comfy to sit in and I love this steering wheel. We've got another N badge here

10:01 It sits nicely in the hands and all of these controls are easy to reach

10:05 Okay back seat have a look at this

10:07 There is acres of legroom here and this is all thanks to that long wheelbase

10:11 So my seat is pretty much all the way back and I've got loads of knee room there

10:15 Heaps of toe room and plenty of headroom as well. Seats themselves are really comfy

10:20 We've got a cinerarm rest here with two cup holders and pop the bottles into there

10:24 You've also got storage inside the door for one bottle

10:27 You've got ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats, mat pockets here, air vents down here plus two USB outlets

10:34 Plus you also have the ability to move your passenger seat from the back here as well, which is pretty impressive

10:39 Okay, let's talk cargo space. So being the long wheelbase, it'll mean that we actually get more

10:44 Cargo volume here plus extra room inside the cabin

10:48 So we don't have an official figure from Hyundai, but we do know that the short wheelbase goes up to 620 litres

10:54 Which in itself is actually pretty impressive. Here on the Australian spec with the long wheelbase

10:59 We'll get a full-size alloy spare wheel

11:02 So that's going to be good news

11:03 If you do any country driving you will have a full-size spare to contend with. We've got hooks on the side here

11:09 A 12-volt outlet, a light plus the ability to drop the seat

11:12 But first let's have a look at what it looks like with our luggage inside

11:16 There you go that fits really nicely and then

11:21 Let's drop that second row to see what that looks like

11:24 There it goes

11:27 When that is flat that should offer you just over a thousand litres of cargo volume

11:33 We don't know exactly where that's going to measure up to but I suspect it'll be up to here

11:37 It's a pretty generous amount of space for a midsize SUV

11:40 Okay, so let's review this car together. This is literally the first time I've seen and driven this car

11:46 So it's all new to me and it's going to be new to you guys

11:48 So let's get through the basics first

11:50 Powering the N-line is the same engine as the rest of the range because the N-line is just an option pack

11:55 And that means this one here the Highlander comes with a 1.6 litre turbocharged

12:00 four-cylinder petrol engine it makes a hundred and thirty two kilowatts of power and

12:05 265 newton meters of torque and that's mated to a seven speed dual clutch transmission

12:12 Now sending that talk to the ground it all runs through an on-demand

12:15 All-wheel drive system and that means that it's sending talk to the rear axle when it needs to when it's got a loss of traction

12:22 You can actually see what it's up to just by flicking through the menu

12:25 You can see there as I put the throttle in sends talk to the front and then some to the rear as well

12:31 Then as I ease out of the throttle

12:33 It's sort of just shuffling it around the place

12:35 So it's a pretty clever system and I like the fact that it's not like a traditional on-demand system where it waits

12:43 Until there's a massive loss of traction and then it finally does something

12:46 It's always working in the background and making sure that the car has as much traction as possible

12:50 Now if you do want to take control of the shifts yourself

12:53 You have paddle shifters attached to the steering wheel one pull of them will start guiding it through the gears and you can take full control

12:58 Pretty straightforward system and nothing too surprising there. Okay, let's talk drive mode

13:03 So we have normal which is just your normal drive mode you flick this little switch here

13:07 We'll pop it over to sport you get that display change

13:10 It kind of looks a little livelier corner coming up. Let's tip out and line in

13:15 Got a punch

13:18 Hey, this is actually pretty good

13:20 So it sits nice and flat through the corners there and it picks up and moves fairly easily

13:24 And the gearbox is pretty responsive too. So the dual clutch isn't isn't performance oriented

13:32 But you get what you need out of it if I punch it out of the corner here. It actually stays

13:37 Stays stuck to the road. It doesn't lose traction and it doesn't feel fussy. So yeah, it's it's a pretty impressive set up there

13:43 It's not lightning fast

13:45 Like when you get on it, it pushes you back in the seat, but it's it's not sort of mega mega quick

13:51 I think if they do end up doing a Tucson N like a proper full fruit N version

13:56 They're probably going to cram the two and a half liter

13:58 Turbocharged four out of the Sonata in this and I think then it's really going to sing along nicely

14:03 But for the average punter this actually feels pretty sporty behind the wheel now in addition to that when you flick to sports mode

14:09 You also get heavier steering too. In terms of the steering feel itself

14:13 There's plenty of communication through the wheel and it actually feels quite easy to place this car on the road

14:18 Often with SUVs like this they're a little big and clumsy and sometimes fall over themselves

14:24 So when you try and aim for a sportier tune, it just doesn't work sometimes

14:28 But in this case, they've actually managed to strike a perfect balance there between comfort and sportiness

14:33 It doesn't sort of feel too comfortable or too sporty

14:36 Okay, so we don't have an official 0 to 100 time from Hyundai for the new Tucson

14:40 But we thought we'd put it up against our stopwatch. Keep in mind. It is slightly downhill

14:45 So this figure is probably going to be slightly quicker than what it actually is

14:48 *Car engine revving*

14:58 I tell you what that actually feels not too bad

15:02 The only downside I did notice there is that the dual clutch takes a little while to get off the line

15:07 You can't really stall it up either. So

15:09 Obviously not going to be doing any drag racing in your new Tucson

15:12 But that is one downside of the dual clutch without launch control. It just doesn't really want to get off the line all that quickly

15:17 Okay, we'll flick it back into normal mode. What's it like just when you're putting around?

15:21 well, the steering feels nice and light and

15:24 Let's just see here if we give this another punch

15:27 See, that's good. So it's leaning on its torque band

15:30 It's not diving back through gears and confusing itself

15:32 And that means that when you are driving it's not always going to be hunting for gears

15:37 Even though it is a 1.6 litre you sometimes feel like it's going to dive back through gears

15:41 But it actually manages the torque really well. Now normally we discuss fuel economy

15:45 We don't have an official figure from Hyundai for this car

15:48 And there's no point actually measuring it because we're on a racetrack and have been punting it a little bit

15:52 But I suspect with something like this it is going to be fairly efficient because it is a 1.6 litre

15:58 It is turbocharged, but it is a small capacity engine

16:01 So this should do better than the current generation of Tucson

16:03 And I'm hoping they can nail around that sort of 8 litres per 100 km. Now, let's talk about rides

16:08 So one of the things that I find fascinating with Hyundai products

16:12 They do a bespoke tune for Australia and all of that is developed here

16:15 So that when the car is launched it has that feel that works on Australian roads

16:19 And if you've seen some of our other videos before I've explained that it's not because Australian roads are any worse than anywhere else in the world

16:25 It's because we have more of a mix of road conditions. So we've got gravel roads

16:30 You've got sort of gravel on the edge of roads

16:32 You've got bumpy corrugated country roads

16:34 And then you have smooth highways. A car needs to be able to serve its purpose across all of those roads

16:39 So they really have to cater for everything and it's surprising here even on 19-inch alloy wheels

16:44 It rides remarkably well. This is granted a pre-production car

16:48 So it isn't the final tune

16:50 But for the most part this is going to feel like most other Hyundais that they tune locally

16:54 And I think they just get that ride perfect and it just means that you are

16:58 Comfortable in the car, but then if you want to be a little sportier

17:01 You can also be a little more aggressive with it and know that it's going to to take care of itself

17:06 Now one thing to note as well. This is different to the European N-line for the Tucson

17:11 We get the long wheelbase in Australia, which I mentioned earlier and that doesn't come with adaptive damping

17:16 So while the European version of the N-line has adaptive damping, this is just that one tune

17:20 Okay, let's talk about negatives really quickly

17:22 I would have loved to see a head-up display even here in the top spec Highlander version

17:27 There's no head-up display and you know, you kind of have to look down at the screen here, which is fine

17:31 It's it's not too out of the way, but it would be cool to see that

17:34 And the other one as well is the gearbox. Yes, the gearbox is okay

17:38 It's a dual clutch transmission and it's not as stumbly as some of the other Hyundai gearboxes like in the in the Kona

17:44 I feel like that that one just sometimes can be really fussy

17:46 This one feels good. But like I mentioned there with the 0 to 100 stuff

17:50 It can just be a little hard to get off the line

17:52 I would just love to see them commit to

17:55 Just a you know torque converter and a torque converter is just going to do 99% of the things that you need to do

18:01 And I really really would love them to confirm a Tucson N at the moment

18:05 They're all saying it's not going to happen

18:07 But can you imagine one of these with a two and a half litre four-cylinder turbo in it? It would be absolutely sensational

18:12 Now let's talk visibility big wing mirrors there so you can see clearly down the side of the cable

18:18 So I got that blind spot monitor built in visibility out

18:20 The rear is really good as well that window envelope isn't overly narrow

18:23 So you can clearly see out the back of it and the headrests don't get in the way either which is really important

18:28 Then of course you have your front and rear parking sensors

18:31 And I can clearly see down the bottom of the bonnet you actually sit quite high

18:34 I don't know if it's higher than other SUVs, but I feel like this is quite a commanding driving position

18:40 I have really good visibility across the car

18:43 So that's going to be a bonus for for people who want to feel a little more confident behind the wheel

18:47 But in saying that as well, it doesn't feel overly big on the road either now

18:50 Normally, we would talk about tire noise as well, but this racetrack surface is incredibly smooth

18:56 So for the most part Hyundai's are generally pretty good when it comes to tire noise

19:00 But I'll reserve judgment until we can get this out on the road and get a better idea of how much tire noise is actually

19:05 Coming into the cabin

19:07 So that's been your first look at the new Hyundai Tucson N-line

19:12 I'm actually pretty excited for this car because I don't know the old Tucson was good when it first launched

19:17 But it is now feeling seriously old

19:19 This steps the game forward in a massive way and brands like Mazda should be pretty

19:24 Concerned because this now feels really nice and premium inside

19:27 Hyundai has always been super sharp with their pricing and it should mean when this finally goes on sale

19:31 It'll shake up the segment really nicely. So let me know what you reckon in the comments section below

19:36 Do you want to see a Hyundai N?

19:37 I know the Hyundai people always watch our videos to pick up on the mistakes I make but they always want to know your

19:43 Feedback, so if you think there should be a Hyundai N

19:45 Let us know in the comments section and I reckon they'll eventually go and build it

19:47 I hope. Anyway, if you did enjoy this video, please share it with your friends

19:52 Please hit the like button and if you haven't done so already subscribe to our channel, but until next time take it easy

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