If you’ve ever spent time on the western coast of the United States, you might know of the Pacific Palisades. It’s a beautiful coastal-adjacent suburb, canvassing the hills behind Santa Monica. It’s a wealthy suburb – a place where many Californian elites reside, with leafy and manicured streets and expansive properties outlooking over the pacific ocean.
It’s also a place where Range Rovers litter carparks of the local wholefoods, and where there’s a pilates gym attached to every shopping centre.
So, you can probably see where Hyundai got their inspiration when they launched the Hyundai Palisade, as their full-size, flagship luxury SUV.
Although, Hyundai isn’t exactly a brand that is synonymous with wealth. Instead, you’re more likely to see one emerging from the local Costco rather than a gated community.
Yet despite this, Hyundai decided to build a Korean interpretation of a luxury European SUV back in 2017. They also massively undercut their equivalent luxury European SUV, by tens-of thousands of dollars.
Clearly, it went well, because we’re now testing out the all-new second-generation Palisade, which is one of Hyundai’s most expensive vehicles to date. Anyway, does the new Palisade continue to offer a true luxury experience?
What We Like and Dislike About the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy
| What we like | What we dislike |
| Quiet, smooth hybrid powertrain Interior design and finish Build quality Ride comfort Abundance of tech and features Trick recliner chairs Competes leagues above its price range | Fuel economy not as good as we’d hoped Middling powertrain performance Throttle response Irksome speed limit detection software and driver attention monitoring |
What’s in the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy range
There are two ways you can have your Hyundai Palisade in New Zealand, but they’re not distinguished by specification, but instead by seating. In other words, you can have the Palisade with either 7 or 8 seats, and fewer seats is more expensive.
Anyway, the only spec of Hyundai Palisade is called Calligraphy. It has one powertrain option, being a 2.5-litre turbocharged petrol four-cylinder engine with two electric motors, outputting a combined 245kW of power and 460Nm of torque. This is linked to a 6-speed automatic gearbox, with all-wheel drive.
For further information on the Hyundai Palisade, check out the Hyundai New Zealand website.
What is the competition for the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy
There isn’t really any natural competition for the Palisade around its own price range in New Zealand, so we’re having to compare it to full-size SUV offerings from Europe. Even then, the Palisade can certainly hang with this crowd in many respects, which you’ll find out by the end of this review.
| Make/Model | Engine | Power/ Torque (kW/Nm) | Seats | Fuel (L/100km) | Towing Capacity | Boot space (litres) | Price |
| BMW X7 xDrive40d | 3.0L turbo-diesel inline 6 | 259/700 | 7 | 8.2 | 750/3,500 | 750 | $222,000 |
| Mercedes GLS 450d | 3.0L turbo-diesel V6 | 270/750 | 7 | 9.0 | 750/3,500 | 890 | $186,938 |
| Land Rover Discovery D350 Dynamic HSE | 3.0L turbo-diesel V6 mild hybrid | 257/650 | 7 | 8.8 | 750/3,500 | 922 | $174,900 |
| Land Rover Defender X-Dynamic SE | 3.0L turbo-diesel V6 mild hybrid | 257/650 | 7 | 8.8 | 750/3,500 | 922 | $157,900 |
| 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy | 2.5-Litre turbocharged four cylinder with two electric motors | 245 / 460 | 7 | 7.6 | 750/2,500 | 712 | $130,990 |
First Impressions of the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy
The Palisade is quite conservative when you compare it to other cars Hyundai has produced in the past half-decade.
There are no hard lines, sharp edges, nor any of the techno cyberpunk design language that appears to have inspired the modern Kona and Ioniq 5. Okay, the blocky daytime running lights at the front might be an exception, but otherwise it’s fairly conventional.
Yet, despite not having the edginess of its peers, the new Hyundai Palisade still makes a statement. It’s big and imposing, providing it with proper road presence, while the quality of its trims and finishing features along with the depth of the paintwork subtly indicate luxury.
The paintwork on our press vehicle was a particular highlight. It’s black on the surface, but catch the sun at the right angle, and you’ll see it’s a deep green metallic.
So yeah, it looks expensive – much like the Palisades.
What’s the Interior like in a 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy
It wasn’t all that long ago where if you wanted a vehicle with middle-row captain’s chairs, you had to buy a van.
Fortunately, the new seven-seat Hyundai Palisade means you can have your middle-row captains chairs, without any ‘corporate chauffeur’ stigmas attached. Anyway, there are many reasons why you’d want to have a Hyundai Palisade on your driveway, and several of them are inside the cabin.
Inside there’s acres of space accommodating front recliner chairs, middle row captain’s chairs, and a third row which can actually fit adults. The fit and finish of the interior is excellent, and many of the cabin materials and the touch points feel high quality. Although, some are a touch plasticky.
Hyundai has also injected some Korean common sense when it comes to useability. There’s plenty of storage spaces, along with some clever solutions like the drawer that slides out from underneath the centre console. There’s also plenty of cupholders, sunshades for the second row and 100-watt USB-C charging ports for all rows.
Naturally, Hyundai has crammed the Palisade with an abundance of standard features, where you could spend a good part of an afternoon going through them and still not cover off everything. There are even a few novelties, including a UV-C-steriliser lights in the glovebox – ya know, sort like one you’d use on a fish tank.
Of course, you’d probably expect a lot of this from a vehicle costing 130-odd grand. But even then, the Palisade still represents good value when compared to the European offerings in the same segment.
On that topic, the Palisade doesn’t really have much natural competition at its pricing point. The Toyota Highlander and Mazda CX-90 compete a segment down (and aren’t as luxurious). Meanwhile, the European competition, such as the Mercedes GLS, BMW X7 and Land Rover Discovery, each add tens of thousands of dollars to the price tag.
Yet, if I were to make comparisons, I’d say the Palisade is competing in the wheelhouse of the latter three – the Merc, the BMW and the Land Rover.
The Palisade certainly stacks up too. From a material and build quality point-of-view, the Palisade is better than that of the Mercedes and easily is on par with the BMW and the Land Rover. Dollar-for-dollar, you’re also getting more standard equipment than those three as well.
It also competes convincingly when it comes to tech. In the front, the Palisade has a curved display, housing two 12.3’’ screens for the infotainment and the digital instrument cluster.
It runs broadly the same software found in other Hyundai/Kia vehicles, meaning the Palisade has the same tile-based UI for the infotainment and the same dash cluster graphics.
The infotainment software is easy-to-use and is responsive. It mightn’t be as quick as your smartphone, but it’s swift by automotive software standards. The digital instrument cluster offers a basic level of configurability, and it has some trick blind spot cameras which activate when you use the indicator.
I’ll admit the Palisade’s infotainment software isn’t quite in the same league as BMW’s i-Drive or Mercedes’ MBUX, but it’s still good in its own right.
What’s the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy like to drive?
So, the Palisade definitely keeps up, and in several ways, betters its more expensive European counterparts when it comes to tech and cabin appointments.
Although it’s comparatively easy to keep up on those fronts these days, it’s considerably more difficult to make a vehicle that drives and rides well. Arguably, this is where the Palisade needs to prove itself the most.
For this bit, I think it’ll help if we split this into two categories. What is the Palisade like from the perspective of a passenger, and what it is like from the perspective of a driver.
From a passenger’s perspective, the Palisade is a superb vehicle to cover ground in. First, the Palisade is quiet. The cabin is well insulated from the harshness of some of our ¾ chip urban roads, and the overall noise floor is kept very low. The hybrid engine is also quite refined, helping to stave off any harshness generated by the powertrain.
Secondly, the Palisade’s ride quality is great. It is very compliant with New Zealand’s varied road terrain, whether it be patchy urban sections or undulating state highways. Although, the Palisade’s suspension does err slightly on the stiffer side – when compared to its class of large pillowy SUVs. This can show itself in certain environments, particularly over short, higher amplitude bumps.
Still, that marginally stiffer set up probably aids with the Palisade’s body control, which is good. It manages head-toss well – which is that jostling you experience from a high-riding SUV. The Palisade is also rather composed when it encounters twistier sections of road – as good as an SUV of its size can, anyway.
It did cross my mind that the Palisade would probably be unstoppable if it had air springs, or the option of a high-end damper, to reduce that last 10% of harshness. It’s that 10% which Audi and Land Rover are so good at eliminating and holds the Palisade back from truly outshining its peers.
That said, there really isn’t much in it. Also, I’d still say the Palisade can easily rival the ride comfort of the Mercedes GLS and the BMW X7.
So yes, I can confirm that on the comfort criteria, the Palisade excels.
But, how does the Palisade perform from a driver’s perspective? I ought to caveat this by saying that we are comparing large SUVs, and we’re not experiencing any miracles in the handling department.
Although, there can be noticeable differences within the class. For example, the BMW X7 is far more athletic and has more dynamic competence than the comparable Merc, Audi or Land Rover. The Palisade isn’t anywhere near the BMW in that respect, I’ll admit. But neither are its competitors.
Instead, we’ll focus more on the drivetrain and driver assistance software.
Underneath the bonnet of the Palisade is a hybrid powertrain, consisting of a turbocharged 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine combined with two electric motors and a 1.65kWh lithium-ion polymer battery. Alone, the turbocharged four-cylinder outputs 192kW of power and 353Nm of torque, while the electric motors output 54kW and 264Nm. Together, the Palisade has combined outputs of 245kW and 460Nm.
Those figures certainly aren’t anything to snivel at, but it does need to carry the Palisades rather hefty 2.2 tonne frame.
Even then, the Palisade isn’t slow. It can build more than adequate momentum surprisingly quickly for an on-ramp merge or overtaking manoeuvre.
The Palisade performs at its best in the mid-range, when the turbocharger is fully supporting the engine. Oddly, it can feel somewhat short on performance through the lower reaches of the rev range. You wouldn’t necessarily expect this from a powertrain producing 460Nm, particularly one with two electric motors providing additional assistance. Yet, compared with the diesels found in its pricier European rivals, the Palisade feels torque deficient.
The six-speed gearbox may also play a part in that slightly muted performance delivery. While the Palisade makes do with six ratios, the Land Rover, BMW and Mercedes-Benz use eight- and nine-speed transmissions, giving them more scope to keep the engine in its sweet spot. To be fair, the Palisade’s gearbox isn’t a weak point in itself, but it’s not quite in the same league as those fitted to its European rivals.
Still, you’d think that the benefit of having a petrol-hybrid powerplant would be recognised in terms of fuel economy. On paper, that’d be true as the Palisade claims to have a fuel consumption figure of 7.6L per 100 kilometres. In reality, we didn’t get anything remotely close – we got 9.8L per 100 kilometres.
Perhaps the weirder issue was the Palisade’s throttle response, or lack thereof. The Palisade would often hesitate for a second when starting from a stand-still. Admittedly, this didn’t happen every time, but it occurred enough to be irritating.
On the subject of irritations, few can compare to that which is presented by poorly calibrated ADAS or Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.
Fortunately, most of the systems in the Palisade are calibrated well. In particular, the lane-keeping assistance software is well executed, which cannot be said for all manufacturers.
However, the Palisade has two notable annoyances, being the driver attention monitoring system and speed limit warning alert.
In the case of the former, I can’t say I’ve ever come across a driver attention monitoring system that actually works properly. In other words, this isn’t only a Hyundai thing. Still, the Palisade will annoyingly beep at you when it thinks you’ve looked away from the road – ‘thinks’ being the operative word.
Yet, the most irritating bit of software was the speed limit warning alert. Basically, this system chimes at you in bursts when it detects that you’ve exceeded the speed-limit, as judged by the traffic sign recognition system.
However, the traffic sign recognition system isn’t always accurate. During our test, there were a few instances where the speed limit (as detected by the car) was wrong, displaying a speed that was lower than it actually is. This meant the system was continuously beeping, even though we were actually travelling below the speed limit.
Fortunately, you can switch these systems off but they start by default every time you turn on the car.
Also, switching them off requires navigating several menus within the infotainment. Sometimes I’d forget to switch them off, and then found myself trying to disable it while driving. Ironically, this would then trigger the driver attention monitoring system. So, perhaps it does work as intended?
2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy – Specifications
| Vehicle Type | Full size SUV |
| Starting Price | $129,990 |
| Price as Tested | $130,990 |
| Engine | 2.5-Litre turbocharged four cylinder with two electric motors |
| Battery type | Lithium-ion polymer |
| Battery capacity | 1.65 kWh |
| Power/Torque (kW/Nm) | 245 / 460 (combined) |
| Transmission | 6-speed automatic (TMED-II) |
| Spare wheel | Full-Size Alloy Spare Wheel |
| Kerb Weight (Kg) | 2,175 |
| Length x Width x Height (mm) | 5,065 x 1,980 x 1,805 |
| Boot Space / Cargo Capacity (Litres, 2nd row seats up/2nd row seats down) | 712 / 2,081 |
| Fuel tank capacity (Litres) | 72 |
| Fuel Economy (L/100km) | Advertised Spec – Combined – 7.6 Real-World Test – Combined – 9.7 Low Usage: 0-6 / Medium Usage 6-12 / High Usage 12+ |
| Towing capacity (Kg, unbraked/braked) | 750 / 2,000 |
| Turning circle (metres) | 11.9 Small: 6-10m / Medium 10-12m / Large 12m+ |
| Warranty | 3 Years / 100,000 km warranty with additional 2 year / 50,000 km warranty (enabled with service plan) 8 year / 160,000 km high voltage battery warranty |
| Safety information | ANCAP Rating – 5 Stars Rightcar.govt.nz – 5 Stars – RQH216 |
