Hyundai wants 2013 Santa Fe to attract families

The long-wheelbase Santa Fe will be sold in six- and seven-passenger configurations and replace the Veracruz in Hyundai's U.S. lineup.

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PARK CITY, UTAH -- Hyundai hopes its redesigned 2013 Santa Fe crossover will address the brand's biggest weakness -- appealing to buyers with families.

The Santa Fe redesign is also an opportunity to boost U.S. sales after most of Hyundai's recent launches have been for lower volume products or variants of existing nameplates. The current generation is Hyundai's highest-volume crossover and its No. 3 best-selling vehicle overall, even in its sixth year on the market.

John Krafcik, CEO of Hyundai Motor America, told reporters last week that the biggest hole in Hyundai's growing lineup is in family vehicles.

"American families want to buy Hyundais, but we haven't had many products in the crossover segment," Krafcik said. "With Santa Fe we're really working hard to fix that."

The 2013 Santa Fe comes in two sizes: a five passenger Santa Fe Sport and a seven passenger Santa Fe, which has a stretched wheelbase and more overall length. (Think Dodge Caravan and Grand Caravan as a strategy comparison.) The Santa Fe replaces the discontinued Veracruz crossover.

The competition

The Sport competes with crossovers like the Chevrolet Equinox and Ford Edge while the long wheelbase Santa Fe will go up against the Toyota Highlander, Nissan Pathfinder and other larger crossovers.

The Sport is on sale now, and the Santa Fe arrives in late December or early January.

The basics: The new sheet metal wrapping the Santa Fe crossovers marks an evolution of Hyundai's "fluidic sculpture" design language. The swoopy, dramatic curves like those seen on the Sonata sedan have been subdued. The Santa Fe's lines are sharper, with more straight edges in sheet metal creases and smoother, less exuberant surface texturing than some of Hyundai's more dramatic recent designs.

Cutting weight was a major development goal for the 2013 redesign, and the Santa Fe Sport shed 266 lbs. compared with the outgoing 2012 model. About 38 percent of the vehicle's body-in-white is made from high-strength steel forged at Hyundai's steel mill in South Korea compared to less than 8 percent in outgoing model. The larger, seven passenger 2013 Santa Fe weighs a whopping 397 lbs. less than the 2012 Veracruz it replaces.

A new platform underpins the 2013 Santa Fe lineup, with a MacPherson strut front suspension and an in-wheel multilink rear, which Hyundai says saves space for interior volume compared to other multilink suspensions. The Santa Fe Sport's dimensions are about the same as the outgoing model. The seven-passenger model has an extra 3.9 inches of wheelbase added to the rear of the B-pillar, and nearly nine extra inches of overall length compared with the Santa Fe Sport to accommodate its third row of seats.

Dimensionally, the redesigned Santa Fe Sport is about the same as the outgoing Santa Fe. The weight savings help to boost highway fuel economy to 33 mpg compared with 28 mpg for the previous model.

Kid-proofed

Notable features: Hyundai kid-proofed the Santa Fe's base cloth seats with Yes Essentials anti-stain fabric that beads up spills for easy cleaning as a standard feature. A 40-20-40 split folding rear seat gives the cargo area extra versatility. The driver and passenger side rear bench seats recline and slide forward and backward independent of one another.

All-wheel-drive is available as an option on all trim levels of the Santa Fe lineup. The drivetrain, supplied by Magna Powertrain, features an Active Cornering Control system that anticipates understeer and automatically applies braking and traction control to keep the Santa Fe from slipping off the road.

A driver-selectable steering system that toggles between three modes of progressively more responsive steering calibrations is also a standard feature.

Compromises and shortcomings: Hyundai engineers opted not to widen the Santa Fe compared to the outgoing model to make the crossover easier to park, said Mike O'Brien, vice president of product planning for Hyundai Motor America. The compromise is a back seat that can get cramped for families trying to cram in three car seats.

The rear seats are tough to fold down from behind the car with the rear lift gate open. The seat release levers in the cargo area don't easily fold the seats down with one touch, which may be tough for parents carrying kids or gear.

What Hyundai says: "We do really well in the pre-family life stage with our lineup, and we do well in the post-family stage," Krafcik said. "The interesting thing is that the people with families who have kids in the house right now, they want to buy Hyundais more than any other group, and we just haven't had very many cars to offer them. And now we do."

The market: Hyundai expects annual Santa Fe Sport and seven-passenger Santa Fe sales to eventually return to the company's previous Santa Fe sales peak of more than 100,000 units.

The skinny: The Santa Fe lineup is an impressive improvement compared to both the outgoing Santa Fe and the Veracruz. Hyundai stuck to its formula of injecting attractive design and high fuel economy ratings with the Santa Fe redesign. Based on how consumers have responded after applying that formula to current-generation Sonata and Elantra, the same should be true for Hyundai's highest-volume crossover.

For previous coverage of the Santa Fe and a photo gallery, click here.

You can reach Ryan Beene at rbeene@crain.com. -- Follow Ryan on

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