Video: 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid

hat kind of salvaged some middle of the road gas mileage when you compare it to the rest of the class. Now, unlike the previous generation of the Sonata hybrid, this generation actually tries to look a little bit more like the non-hybrid car on which it's based. You can definitely tell some differences though. First front and center Hyundai is sort of hexagon on grill here on the Sonata, a little bit deeper visually on the hybrid, the front and rear bumpers also new, and check out these fenders if you look closely, Hyundai says they're a little bit more aerodynamic on the hybrid. Now the Sonata hybrid has some different gauges here versus the regular Sonata. One of my favorite screens here, just kind of puts a very simple layout of your driving style shows you how economical versus aggressively you've been driving. Very simple there. I like that a lot. Now, otherwise the cabin very roomy, especially in the backseat, again like the regular Sonata, very straightforward layout of controls here. We've been having some issues though with the multimedia system in our test car, the navigation screen has been showing us way off of the road we're driving on. And the radio screen actually froze for a couple of days when we were trying to change stations, it seems to be working now, but definitely something to keep an eye on during your test drive. Now, typical of a hybrid it takes a few moments from when you really get on the gas to when the engine and the electric motor kind of come on and start working in tandem. But once that's going on, the Sonata hybrid really does have enough passing power, especially if you take it out of eco mode and put it into the drive trains normal or sport mode. Now like the regular Sonata, the Sonata hybrid is quiet It's comfortable at cruising speeds, not the sportiest of cars. You'd think that the hybrid, you know, with it's battery pack sitting behind the rear seats, there would add a little bit of rear wheel weight distribution and improve handling a little bit, not so much the case. Some editors were also split over breaking, I thought they were okay in terms of brake pedal feel for a hybrid, one other editor thought the pedal was too spongy and difficult to modulate bringing the car to a stop. Add it all up and EPA combined gas mileage for the Sonata hybrid is in the low 40s, now that's a lot better than the regular Sonata, which gets combined numbers anywhere from 25 to 32 miles per gallon. But in this class, a sort of mid-sized hybrid sedans It's a little bit middle of the road. You'd think that Hyundai having the most recent redesign with a leapfrog the competition, that's not really the case with the Sonata hybrid. The hybrids typically lose out on trunk space because that's where the battery pack has to sit. But the Sonata hybrid actually does okay. Trunk volume, 13.3 cubic feet. That's about 20% less than the regular Sonata, but actually pretty good for this crowd of mid-sized kind of family sedan hybrids. There's a 60/40 split folding rear seat. It actually folds down in both sections and leaves a pretty large pass through. You can get a lot of stuff through if you've got to go to that hardware store. Now the Sonata hybrid starts under $27,000, which is pretty affordable for this group of cars. Our limited trim test car here runs around $36,000, which is right around where the others top out, but it comes from a pretty good pedigree given that the regular Sonata won cars.com 10 car family sedan comparison in 2014, the hybrid builds on that. I got to say, it's worth a look.