The 2024 Hyundai Elantra Hybrid We Tested Has Superb Rivals, Including Its Own
Sometimes you get what you pay for. The Limited version of the Elantra Hybrid, while solid, is caught in a tough spot.
Pros
- Ventilated seats at this price?
- Big displays, standard
- 50 mpg
Cons
- Road noise
- Some hard interior materials
- Civic Hybrid is more refined
Don’t be discouraged by the narrative that cars are now more expensive than ever. It’s true, but plenty of awesome and affordable options still exist if you know where to look. For a while, “awesome” was exactly how we described the Hyundai Elantra Hybrid. We could barely contain our enthusiasm when we drove it at our 2022 Car of the Year competition, but that was before the Toyota Prius—our 2024 Car of the Year—came along, to say nothing of the 2025 Civic Hybrid, a car so good we said it’s “definitely the one you want.”
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Does that leave any space for the 2024 Elantra Hybrid?
Updated for 2024, the Elantra Hybrid attempts to put its best tire forward in the higher of two trims, called Limited. It’s an incredible features-per-dollar value that battles aspirational options like the Prius and Civic hybrids as well as a hybrid version of one of the most popular cars on the planet: the Toyota Corolla.
Leading With Tech and Value
All four of those compact hybrids offer around 50 mpg, which translates to lower overall fuel costs and fewer gas station stops. Where the 2024 Elantra Hybrid breaks away is the way it combines tech and value. Every Elantra Hybrid now includes a 10.3-inch instrument panel and an identically sized infotainment display that’s tilted a tad toward the driver for easier visibility at a glance. On the Limited trim like our test car, you also get upscale features including heated and ventilated front seats.
Did we mention this thing is less than $31,000?
Total system power from the Elantra Hybrid’s 1.6-liter engine and electric motor comes to 139 hp, which aligns it more with the Corolla (138 hp) than the Prius (194-196 hp) and Civic Hybrid (200 hp)
Have Your Cake but Don’t Eat It
We knew the more powerful competitors would be quicker, but not to this degree. The 2024 Elantra Hybrid Limited delivered a perfectly acceptable 0–60-mph time of 8.7 seconds, but that’s well behind a 2023 Prius XLE FWD (7.2 seconds) and not even close to a 2025 Civic Hybrid, which we’ve tested hitting 60 mph in 6.1-6.3 seconds on different occasions. It is better than the AWD Corolla Hybrid, however, which cruises to 60 in 9.7 seconds.
We mention the enormous 3.6-second range of 0–60 times in a story on 50-mpg hybrids because all of these cars offer great mileage. Wouldn’t you rather have the confidence to pass when necessary, plus more mpgs when you don’t?
The Elantra Hybrid only sorta accomplishes this, unlike the Civic Hybrid and Prius that definitely do. What the straight-line numbers don’t tell you, though, is what the Hyundai's driving experience is like. As we found out on the track, its handling is solid up to a point; push too hard, and the Elantra Hybrid understeers.
The Civic Hybrid feels more athletic and refined in the city or on a winding road. You feel fewer low-speed hybrid transitions in the Civic than the Elantra, and there’s less feedback through the accelerator and brake pedal.
The Elantra Hybrid also adds more tire thrum and general road noise at highway speeds than we’d like, but we do have some good performance-y news: Its six-speed dual-clutch transmission is well behaved. At least in our test car, the low-speed slop that characterizes some cars with dual-clutch transmissions isn’t the case here. And we hate to continue the “yes, but...” theme of this review, but the Prius and Civic Hybrid are even smoother around town.
Staying Safe
Cars that haven’t been redesigned in years sometimes have trouble in safety testing. Not so the 2024 Elantra Hybrid. The Hyundai gets a 2024 Top Safety Pick from IIHS, which is good. That’s better than the Corolla, which doesn’t earn an award for 2024, but the Hyundai falls short of—you guessed it—the 2024 Top Safety Pick+ earned by the Prius and Civic.
In our emergency braking test, the Elantra stopped from 60 mph in 122 feet, but the real story is how well the car handled the test. The last thing you want in a panic-braking situation is for the car to make strange noises or, worse, feel like the brakes will fade if you put your foot into them too hard. Here, our test crew reported consistent distances over four consecutive tests, with no shimmies, shakes, or apparent heat issues. There was some noise when the ABS kicked in, but overall, it’s what you’d expect from a car in this situation.
Blue Magic
The Elantra Hybrid in Limited trim attempts to be both aspirational and a great value. We’ve driven everything in this category and can tell you it does one better than the other. Yes, the Hyundai is around $2,500 cheaper than a loaded Civic Hybrid sedan or FWD Prius, but it feels cheaper, too. We like the Elantra Hybrid, but some elements of the interior and the way it drives betray Hyundai’s admirable focus on saving you money.
Where things brighten considerably is with the 2024 Elantra Hybrid’s base trim, called Blue. Thanks to 16-inch alloy wheels as opposed to the Limited’s 17s, the Blue manages 51/58 mpg city/highway to the Limited’s already good 49/52. We expect the taller sidewalls of the Blue’s tires may soften the Limited trim’s somewhat firm ride, and you also go about 40 more miles between fillups.
The best part: Even with twin 10.3-inch screens and Hyundai’s three years of complimentary maintenance, the Blue’s base price is only $27,400. Combine that with interest rates that are typically better at Hyundai than the competition—1.99 percent for 60 months as this is written—and you have one efficient value.
Don’t get us wrong, you may sense the cheapness, but Blue maximizes the Elantra Hybrid’s mpgs and value. At the Limited level, we'd recommend crunching numbers to see if a better-driving Civic Touring Hybrid is within your reach.
I’ve come a long way since I drove sugar packets across restaurant tables as a kid, pretending they were cars. With more than 17 years of experience, I'm passionate about demystifying the new car market for shoppers and enthusiasts. My expertise comes from thoughtfully reviewing countless vehicles across the automotive spectrum. The greatest thrill I get isn’t just from behind the wheel of an exotic car but from a well-executed car that’s affordable, entertaining, and well-made. Since about the time I learned to walk I’ve been fascinated by cars of all shapes and sizes, but it wasn’t until I struggled through a summer high school class at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design that I realized writing was my ticket into the automotive industry. My drive to high school was magical, taking me through a beautiful and winding canyon; I've never lost the excited feeling some 16-year-olds get when they first set out on the road. The automotive industry, singing, and writing have always been my passions, but because no one seeks a writer who sings about the automotive industry, I honed my writing and editing skills at UC Irvine (zot zot!), serving as an editor of the official campus newspaper and writing stories as a literary journalism major. At USC, I developed a much greater appreciation for broadcast journalists and became acquainted with copy editing rules such as why the Oxford comma is so important. Though my beloved 1996 Audi A4 didn’t survive my college years, my career with MotorTrend did. I started at the company in 2007 building articles for motorcycle magazines, soon transitioning to writing news posts for MotorTrend’s budding online department. I spent some valuable time in the copy editing department, as an online news director, and as a senior production editor. Today, MotorTrend keeps me busy as the Buyer's Guide Director. Not everyone has a career centered on one of their passions, and I remind myself all the time how lucky I am.
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