Car Advice's spy photographers have snapped the 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe large SUV while testing near the company’s German development centre. Hyundai’s replacement for the current Santa Fe, is confirmed to appear next year, and will move upmarket to better match the Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-9 and Toyota Kluger.

New design elements such as the company’s latest hexagonal grille design and more aggressive LED lights are sure to feature, while there also appear to be stronger character lines around the arches. It looks altogether more mature and less edgy than the current car, though the signature raked side windows – with subsequent issues for third-row outward visibility – look to remain in some form.


The version spotted here has twin exhaust-pipe outlets and a set of sharp LED tail lights, plus interesting and sporty alloy wheels. Likely an upper-end version, then. One might expect the new Santa Fe to share some platform elements with the Kia Sorento/Carnival, and gain a subsequent size increase from the current car’s small-ish 4700 mm length and 2700 mm wheelbase, to around 4800 mm and 2800 mm respectively, thereby separating itself from the smaller Tucson more effectively.

We’d expect a heavily revised version of the current 2.2-litre turbo-diesel engine to be offered, with improved emissions. The petrol offering may be a V6, or perhaps a downsized turbo-four such as the 245 Hp version in the Sonata. A plug-in hybrid version using bits from the Ioniq seems likely, too.


Expect both front-wheel drive and on-demand all-wheel drive to remain available. Hyundai Australia will again tune the suspension. Expect the cabin treatment skew into more premium territory as well, with nicer trims, plus the latest infotainment (standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connections, of course) and some level of partially-autonomous active safety tech.