The IT Nerd

The 2020 Hyundai Palisade Luxury has a very impressive interior, though there are a couple of things that I will criticize. One of them is personal preference, one is a bit of a observation that I typical don’t make about cars these days. But let’s start with the driver’s seat.

The driver’s seat is heated, ventilated, and extremely comfortable as you can adjust every aspect that matters including thigh length to give you a comfortable and perfect driving position.

The trim is impressive. There’s a mix of soft touch material, leather, and the best fake wood I have ever seen in a car. It was so convincing that I had to email Hyundai Canada to confirm that it was fake as I along with many others who saw it were not sure. Hyundai Canada confirmed that it was and it was engineered to be consistent and convincing. I’d say mission accomplished on that front as nobody who was in this vehicle could tell it was fake and everyone who was in this vehicle said it looked good.

The footwell is a comfortable place for your feet to be as it has a large dead pedal. To the left of the steering wheel are the buttons for the various electronic overseers as well as the electronic parking brake.

The steering wheel is leather wrapped, heated, and feels good in your hands. It has all the controls for the infotainment system and cruise control on the left and right sides.

Behind the steering wheel are a pair of paddle shifters.

You have a pair of easy to read analog gauges as well as a high resolution TFT display in the center. Everything was easy to read in all lighting conditions.

To the left of the steering wheel is an 10.25″ almost HD resolution infotainment screen that was very sharp and easy to read. It also integrates well with the rest of the dash which is covered in a soft touch material.

You get hard buttons for all the infotainment system. And below that are the controls for the three zone (first and second rows) HVAC system. Below that are all the controls for the transmission, drive modes, and other driving activities. Below that are the controls for the vented and heated front seats. I have to admit that I am not sold on the push button transmission as I learned to drive a manual transmission, and if you get into a dangerous situation, you could pop the transmission into neutral by hitting the shift lever toward the center. The same is true for automatic transmissions as well. That’s something that you can’t do here. Thus my natural reaction to this setup is to look at it warily. But many people think I am showing my age and that this is a non issue. And besides, many other vehicles have a system like this. Thus maybe I should introduce myself to 2020 and embrace this transmission setup as it really allows the center console to have a coherent look to it.

The area where the cup holders are is extremely versatile as you can retract the cup holders for additional space, and they can be covered for privacy reasons.

It passed my Starbucks Venti test with ease. Plus, you can see the main USB port to the left.

Below the armrest is a storage area that has a 12V outlet and another USB port.

Below the center console is a storage area with a 12V outlet and a USB port. For those keeping score at home, that’s three USB ports so far.

On the roof are the controls for the sunroof, the lights, the buttons for BluLink, as well as a flip down mirror that allow you to see what the kids are up to in the second and third rows.

There’s a decently sized glove box that’s lit.

You get a standard sized sunroof that’s powered operated, but has a manual sunshade.

The middle row can hold three adults. But the middle occupant has to deal with the hump for the driveshaft. But the two groups of adults that I had in this vehicle didn’t really complain about that too much.

If you don’t need to seat three people, you can use the middle seat for cup holders.

There are second row HVAC controls as well as a 12V outlet. Plus you have the seat warmers for the outward second row passengers. Parents will be happy to know that these controls can be locked out to keep your kids from fiddling around with them.

On each of the front seats are USB ports that are accessible by the second row passengers. That’s five USB ports and counting.

There are manual sunshades on the rear doors.

The third row actually fit adults. Two of them to be precise and they were comfortable. I can see three children fitting back here though.

On each side of the third row you have cup holders, the switch to power adjust the recline of the third row seats, you have a USB port. That’s a total of 7 USB ports for the vehicle.

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Depending on how the seats are folded, you can have a bit of cargo space with all seats up, or you can have a lot of cargo space with the second and third rows down.

And folding down the second and third row seats is easy thanks to these buttons. The second row only flips down, but the third row are both power down and up. Note the 12V outlet as well.

There’s under floor storage in the back which is handy for storing the privacy cover.

There’s both a button and a handle to allow you to close the rear hatch.

The interior very quiet for the most part. The only exception to that is an intermittent buzzing sound that my wife and I could only trace to the area of the passenger side b-pillar. We could never fully identify the exact location of the sound. Also of note, the buzz was not present (or we didn’t hear it as we weren’t paying attention) when we had passengers in the vehicle. I haven’t had to say that in a car review in years and I have to assume that it was just a potential issue with my tester. Other than that, this interior is well executed and will impress anyone who steps into it.

Tomorrow, I will look at the tech in the Palisade, and some of it is really cool. Tune in to see what the cool tech is and what I think of it.