Video: 2026 Hyundai Palisade: The Perfect 3-Row SUV?

And other than the obvious stylistic changes, it comes with an optional hybrid drive train, which I know quite a few of you are gonna be looking forward to. And myself, I'm quite excited about the Palisade's new off-road focus XRT Pro trim. So let's dive in. Let's talk about it. Let's see what it's all about. There's a lot that's changed on the inside of the 2026 Hyundai Palisade, but there's also quite a bit of familiarity. For one, you're gonna see on most upper, middle to upper trims, you've still got the dual panoramic 12.3 inch displays for both the infotainment and the driver display. The steering wheel design should be familiar to those that have driven the updated Hyundai Santa Fe. Depending on the trim you get, you have plenty of charging and connectivity options on the center console. You've got wireless phone charging, three USBC ports right here mounted centrally, two of which are rated to a hundred watt charging. You've got tons of storage down here below. I have to say, other than the feature set, one of my favorite bits about the new Palisade is how these screens are now kind of sunken into the dash and you have this kind of dash topper here. It's very nice. I think it really works, especially with the line that's drawn down here on the outside. A lot of the layout and controls will be at least somewhat familiar to those who've been keeping up with Hyundai's packaging as of late on the interiors, which is a really good thing. Lots of hard buttons in here. Always love to see that. Lots of hard controls. Some of the more notable features of the new palisade are kind of buried in the new infotainment updated system. So here if you go, we got the, of course, if you're in the hybrid powertrain, you've got the requisite hybrid powertrain layout pages here to look at battery and you know, where the, where is the power being sent, front or rear, all that kind of good stuff. Then for the first time, we have a fairly extensive suite of seat controls for the whole vehicle. Now of course the front is gonna be kind of grayed out here because the seat controls are handled well on the side of the seat. But for those that are driving, you can toggle the seat warming functions for the second and third row along with the ventilation controls for the second row. You don't get ventilated in the third row unfortunately. You can also control the positioning of the second row. You can do a full seat back recline. There's a relax mode too, which is kind of nice. And then you can do a full seat, you know, folding toggle for cargo loading, passenger loading, passenger access, all that kind of good stuff. I think that's pretty neat. Another cool thing is we have a built in dash cam function, so no more, you know, installing your own dash cam. If you have to get a Palisade, that's optioned correctly. Now the last gen Palisade was hardly a shrinking violet, but dang, this one is for sure bigger. Now Hyundai says it added 2.5 inches to the overall length with a wheel based stretch of 2.7 inches over the prior SUV. However, the front overhang has been reduced by 1.6 inches with the stylistic redesign and overall repackaging. So no excuse if you hit something while parking. It certainly looks more SUVish than before with way more hard angles and muscular accents. The new front fascia is quite striking in person and that LED motif is wild. You've got two powertrain choices now, up from just one with the prior rig. The standard engine is, once again, a naturally aspirated V6 only now downsized from the older 3.8 liter to a new 3.5 liter V6 good for 287 horsepower and 260 pounds feet of torque, both figures that are slightly down compared to the old engine. But the big news is the addition of a hybrid drive train. Yeah, hybrid. So hot right now, a 2.5 liter, 262 horsepower, naturally aspirated force cylinder is the core with two electric motors incorporated into the transmission boosting combined power to 329 horsepower and 339 pounds feet of torque. That is good stuff. But the hybrid's here for efficiency, not speed. And Hyundai hasn't finalized the rating yet, but it expects over 30 miles per gallon. Outside of that new hybrid HRT, the off-road oriented XRT Pro Trim is the first of its kind, not only for the Palisade, but for Hyundai as a whole. The new pro designation builds off the existing outdoorsy XRT trim, boosting its terrain capability beyond, well most Hyundais that we've seen before. Other than the requisite body cladding, badging, trim specific interior accents, the XRT Pro adds an exclusive electronic rear limited slip differential and extra inch of ground clearance. All terrain tires, mud, sand and snow terrain modes, functional exposed tow hooks, hill descent control, and legitimate metal skid plates under the front and rear portions of the underbody. Not bad. Oh yeah, it's the real deal, at least as far as all-wheel drive crossovers go. Unfortunately, your dreams of eco off-roading will be shattered as the hybrid powertrain isn't available for the XRT Pro instead offered exclusively with that new 3.5 liter V6. It looks like soft curvy lines might be on their way out at Hyundai if the 2026 Palisade is anything to go by because it looks like big boxy SUVs are on their way back in. I think that's a pretty good thing. This styling change along with the optional hybrid drive train, are probably gonna continue and push forward the Palisade's proven track record of sales success. And I think that's especially true if you're looking for something to take off the beaten path like with the XRT Pro. And that's exactly what I'm hoping to do when I get my hands on it later this year. But until then, for my full thoughts and updates on the Palisade, you can go to cars.com/news.