Spy Shots Point to a 600-Mile Santa Fe

Two camouflaged Hyundai Santa Fe prototypes caught testing in Los Angeles appear to be the facelifted model that will carry Hyundai’s first range-extender hybrid. Hyundai says that version will go more than 600 miles between fill-ups.

The giveaway is a fuel filler door on the passenger-side rear quarter panel of both test cars, a spot the current Santa Fe does not use, which suggests a repackaged floor with a battery and a gas engine working as a generator. The nose has been reworked to look like the new Tucson, with tall blade-shaped running lights at the corners, a light bar across the front and the headlamps tucked into small pods below.

The photos were published by Jalopnik on October 18 after writer Daniel Golson spotted the pair on the street, and the outlet’s reading of the filler-door placement is an inference, not something Hyundai has confirmed. Jalopnik reported that the range-extender setup uses two electric motors for propulsion with a gasoline engine running as a generator, that the grille looks smaller and the bumper chunkier than today’s car, and that the cabin will get the new Pleos Connect screen layout that has already leaked from the facelift.

What Hyundai has confirmed is the powertrain and the timing. At its CEO Investor Day on August 26, the company said its first extended-range electric vehicle will be a Santa Fe launching in the first half of 2027, built at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama, with a target of more than 600 miles of total range and a battery less than half the size of a comparable EV’s. A Genesis range-extender SUV with a 640-mile target follows in early 2027. Hyundai has not said whether the EREV arrives on the facelifted body, and Jalopnik’s suggestion that the reveal lands at the New York Auto Show in April is the outlet’s guess based on Hyundai’s past practice.

The Montgomery plant is already preparing. In an October 28 investment announcement, the plant said part of its roughly $450 million package covers engine variants for hybrid and extended-range applications and tooling for the refreshed Santa Fe, which it builds alongside the Santa Fe Hybrid, Tucson and Santa Cruz.

The current fifth-generation Santa Fe arrived for 2024 with its boxy styling and is Hyundai’s third-best seller, with 103,115 sold through September, up 1 percent, and the Santa Fe Hybrid just posted its best quarter ever. A range-extender version would give it a powertrain the Toyota Highlander and Grand Highlander do not offer, and one that sidesteps the charging worries that have dragged on Hyundai’s Ioniq EVs this year.

The HyundaiHQ Take

A Santa Fe that drives like an EV around town and still does 600 miles on a road trip is the right idea for a family SUV, and building it in Alabama next to the gas and hybrid versions keeps it out of tariff trouble. The facelift matters less than the fuel door. Hyundai’s hybrid Santa Fe already sells on its own, so the question for shoppers is price: a smaller battery should keep the EREV closer to the hybrid than to the Ioniq 9, and if Hyundai lands it there, Toyota will have a problem it cannot answer until its own range-extender shows up.