Tested: The 2026 Hyundai Palisade Hybrid Finally Gets It Right

Hyundai’s biggest SUV just got bigger, but its appetite got smaller. According to the EPA, the all-new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid earns a combined rating 9 mpg better than its conventionally powered counterpart. At 29 mpg combined, the all-wheel-drive Palisade Hybrid Calligraphy tested here is the least efficient of the three hybrid Palisade variants rated by the EPA. The other two, the front-wheel-drive SEL Limited and Calligraphy trims, earn respective 34- and 31-mpg estimates.

The introduction of the hybrid version of the Palisade coincides with a full redesign of one of the brand’s biggest hits. When it arrived for 2020, the Palisade (and its mechanical twin, the Kia Telluride) won the hearts of auto scribes and soccer moms alike for its ease of use, space, styling, and drivability. For 2026, the standard Palisade nets increases in length, interior space, tech, and efficiency. And it gets a hybrid powertrain as part of its lineup.

The Palisade Calligraphy tested here is loaded with all the goods, including 21-inch wheels, a thick list of driver assist features, heated and ventilated seats in the first and second rows, a 12.3-inch infotainment display, and a Bose audio system, to name but a few. A not-so-subtle $60,380 asking price accompanies these glories.

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Here’s the Value

The Palisade Hybrid’s powertrain is solid: A turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder is paired to two electric motors for a total system output of 329 horsepower and 339 lb-ft of torque, all of which is routed through a conventional six-speed automatic transmission, a blessed relief from the throngs of CVTs found across the hybrid spectrum.

For the record, that’s 42 hp and 79 lb-ft better than the V-6-powered nonhybrid Palisade. Every Palisade Hybrid comes standard with front-wheel drive. Adding all-wheel drive is a $2,000 option.

Look carefully at Hyundai’s pricing, and the hybrid begins to look like a solid value, especially considering the additional power. The electrified powertrain is roughly a $2,200 upgrade across all three trims versus the standard Palisade.

Using the annual fuel costs printed on the window stickers of hybrid- and gas-powered Calligraphy AWD models, indicates an $800/year savings. That suggests it’ll take only 2.8 years to recoup the price premium in fuel cost savings, making the hybrid a standout value in the long run.

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Hybrid Performance

And it’s not slow. Our test SUV hit 60 mph in 6.6 seconds, 1.3 seconds quicker than its nonhybrid counterpart and 0.9 second quicker than the last Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid we tested. It’s off the pace of the 2025.5 Volvo XC90 T8 AWD PHEV, which registered 4.9 seconds, but that’s an $88,695 luxury SUV. And nobody is likely to be racing these things anyway. It also stops well, braking from 60 to 0 in only 122 feet in our test.

Strikingly, the usual hybrid drivability flaws never really crop up in the Palisade. Its brake pedal feels perfectly normal, and its six-speed transmission, which comes with the added control of paddles on the steering wheel, is largely invisible during normal driving. There’s ample torque at light throttle, which diminishes the need to work the engine very hard. Moving through traffic at surface-street speed is trivially easy for this midsize box.

A Luxury SUV?

Hyundai upped its game with the design and materials of the new Palisade, especially this Calligraphy trim, which verges into luxury-adjacent territory. Leather covers its seats and steering wheel, with artificial leather wrapping parts of the dash and doors. And the interior doesn't try as hard as some European brands to be absurdly modern. Rather, as in most Hyundais, there’s a sense of pragmatism alongside the opulence.

And it works. You won’t find yourself trying to decipher basic functions in the Palisade. Even its start/stop button and shifter, which are newly integrated, are executed intuitively. There are four knobs and plenty of dedicated buttons on the dashboard, which ensure two things. First, basic adjustments that are best made by turning a dial—HVAC temperature and audio system volume, for example—are easy. And second, you won’t have to dig through a bunch of menus to do simple things like activating a seat heater.

We were annoyed by the power-operated second-row seats, though, which move with lethargy toward the front row via a button on top of their backrest. Their 10-second journey to the full-forward position is enough to make any middle-schooler turn to a screen in disgusted boredom. They return to their starting position in about six seconds. But the second row doesn’t fold fully flat, which is likely to annoy anyone trying to haul a dresser to grandma's. At 116.9 inches, the Palisade’s wheelbase affords its third row significantly more space than you’ll find in, say, a Hyundai Santa Fe (110.8 inches). But the way back still isn’t a place for anyone bigger than a small adult.

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All the Aid You’ll Ever Need. And Then Some

There’s a phalanx of driver-assist features, some of which are more useful than others. A short list of the big-ticket items includes blind-spot warning and avoidance assist; rear cross-traffic avoidance assist; front, rear, and side parking sensors; automatic emergency braking; and a semi-autonomous highway driving assist feature that combines adaptive cruise control and lane centering.

I found myself constantly battling the lane keeping system during highway driving, but that could just be my fear of the rise of the machines. No one else complained. Otherwise, it’s nice to be able to see what surrounds the Palisade in parking situations, and we all like being warned before we back into things. These features led at least one tester to refer to this SUV as the “Palisafe,” a not entirely inaccurate moniker given the abundance and conservative calibration of the systems.

How It Makes You Feel

There are worse things to deal with than overly cautious driver aids, and the Palisade Hybrid largely avoids those pitfalls. It’s a nice place to spend time, gains efficiency in proportion to its price premium, and performs well for the segment. It also comes with a bunch of warranties that add value absent in its competition.

This is a hybrid that makes sense in many ways. We like it. And we bet you will, too.