small crossovers and suv's are all the rage these days everybody's buying one
and they're buying them more and more every single minute hyundai does not
want to be left out of that party which is why they've brought us this this is
the new 2018 hyundai kona and while the name may make you think of volcanic
islands and tropical breezes and beautiful Hawaiian beaches frankly
that's not what we have here today we are in Detroit on Belle Isle and as
beaches go this is pretty much what we've got however we also have this to
play with a fantastic new crossover from Hyundai so what makes this thing so
special I'm not sure it's the styling that makes it special because we've
criticized the Kona in the past for kind of looking like a mishmash of every
other crossover on the market put together let me check this out these are
not the headlights these are the daytime running lights they're LED and they're
standard the actual headlights are down here they're in the bumper and if that
looks like the last generation Jeep Cherokee to you well frankly it looks
like that to me too the grille is wider and is meant to
evoke Hyundai steel making processes it meant to look like an urn where you
melting the steel and pouring it into something else and if you're a fan of
black plastic cladding while they've got it here - it's all down the front it's
on the fenders it's on the back fender sits on the back bumper it's meant to
make the thing look a little bit more rugged meant to look like some kind of a
machine where you can see the bones of the machine instead of just the actual
exterior and if you're a fan of compact dimensions well check this out it's
almost a foot shorter than the Hyundai Tucson so it'll fit just about anywhere
you want to put it depending which model you get you get a choice of wheel sizes
base wheels are 17 inch but this one has 18 inch wheels which come as you rise
through the various trim levels now the paint on this one is a special for 2018
called lime twist optional is a contrasting roof either black or grey
obviously this one doesn't have it if you like this color however you're going
to want to get an 18 because in 2019 this becomes bright orange so there are
a couple of things we should talk about inside the kona and the first is this
you push this button and it automatically locks the all-wheel drive
in a 50/50 torque split normally the all-wheel drive operates only the front
wheels and it activates rear wheels as needed if it detects any
kind of slippage but if you think you can do better than the system detecting
when you need to have that kind of torque you push that button 50% of the
front 50% of the rear sometimes it'll help you get out of a slippery situation
out on the street I'm actually really quite surprised at how well the kkona
drives it feels like a much larger vehicle than it actually is and that's
not to say that it's got a larger footprint anything like that because it
certainly doesn't it is a very small SUV and it feels like a small SUV but the
ride and handling of it make it feel like a larger vehicle the ride
especially is really quite well damped the handling itself it's still a tall
vehicle and it is a bit more tippy than say something like a Veloster or an
Elantra but in terms of overall ride quality even with these 18-inch wheels
it's really not that bad until you get to some seriously broken pavement and
then you may have wished that you've gotten the 17-inch wheels instead with
the larger sidewall tires but overall it has a sophistication that we're starting
to find in a number of Hyundai vehicles that hasn't been there before part of
the reason I think for the better ride and handling in this vehicle at least is
the multi-link rear suspension base Kona's only get a torsion beam rear
suspension was a little less sophisticated but when you get the
all-wheel drive option you get a multi-link rear suspension as well so
you have a fully independent suspension front and rear and that definitely does
help things out in terms of dynamics underhood you've got a choice of two
engines if you get the base models you get a two-liter four-cylinder engine
making 147 horsepower which it's not a whole lot if you upgrade to all-wheel
drive you can get the 1.6 liter turbocharged engine now it's making a
hundred and seventy five horsepower but it makes 195 pound-feet of torque and it
really does help the conus scoot around town with no problem whatsoever you get
a choice of two transmissions in the Kona and it depends on which engine
choice you've specified the base 2-liter engine with the front-wheel drive comes
with a six-speed Automatic transmission but if you upgrade to the 1.6 liter
turbo engine you get a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission those
are the same power trains that you find in the Hyundai Veloster but the turbo
engine in the Kona is detuned a little bit it only makes 175 horsepower instead
of 201 that we see in other applications but it's still making 195 pound-feet of
torque and that means that the code of scoots around town with really no
problem at all acceleration is brisk it really feels strong and the 7-speed
dual-clutch transmission snaps off shifts pretty much imperceptibly the
only issue I have with the dual clutch transmission is that when you're
shifting you can say from park to drive or from the reverse to drive it does
take a half a second before it actually gets into that gear so you have to kind
of let it do its thing before it's ready to actually send you on your way one
area that sets the Kona apart from a number of its competitors in the class
is the amount of safety equipment that is both standard and optional now for
2018 things like forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking
are optional you can only get them on the higher trim levels but they've told
us that if you wait for the 2019 model all of those items become standard even
on the base model so they're going to be a slight price increase for 2019 but
you'll be able to get things like the forward
and the automatic emergency braking on a base-model instead of having to spring
over $25,000 for a higher trim level and for us it might be worth the wait this
is not the quietest interior that I've experienced in the crossover there is
some wind noise around the top of the windshield and you're getting good
amount of road noise through these 18-inch wheels and tires but overall
it's still a pleasant experience the seats are very comfortable frankly
they're supportive and if you're driving an ultimate trim like this one you have
a power 8 way adjustable driver's seat with lumbar support as well sitting in
the kona the visibility is really quite good it's a small SUV and so you're
sitting up a little bit higher you've got great big windows all around there
really isn't a problem in any direction in terms of visibility you've got plenty
of headroom in here even though this one has the optional moonroof there's no
issue in terms of having front or back now there is a little bit of an issue
with legroom in the back it does feel kind of tight back there
there's really not as much room as there are in some other small SUVs or even
some of Hyundai's own products like the Elantra the interior quality is really
quite good in fact you know most new Hyundai's and Kias that we've seen these
days they've really upped the interior quality game now everything in here is
still hard plastic there's no soft touch stuff even on up high parts like on the
door sills on the top of the dash it's still all hard plastic but the graining
on it makes it look like it should be soft touch and as long as you're not
touching it frankly it looks just fine this model is got the
special paint on the outside and so it's also got a special interior we've got
some green trim rings and green piping in the seats as well now for 2018 that's
the special color for 2019 this probably becomes orange and probably gets some
updates as well to what the interior looks like there's a couple of different
interiors you can choose from depending on the trim level that you've selected
but there are cloth and leather options if you get a turbo engine you
automatically get leather interior as well
the standard multimedia screen is a 7-inch touchscreen you get standard
apple carplay and android auto but if you want to upgrade you can get this
this is the 8 inch navigation screen and it comes also with the Infinity premium
audio system which actually sounds pretty bumpy one of the reasons you
might buy a small crossover like this is for the utility of it and it does have
more cargo room than some competitors like the Jeep renegade or the Chevrolet
Trax but surprisingly it has less cargo room behind the second row than
Hyundai's own Veloster sports coupe so while you get a more comfortable vehicle
and you get a lot more Headroom it's not necessarily more practical in terms of
cargo so what has surprised us so much about the Hyundai Kona well it's not how
pretty it is because quite frankly it's really not all that pretty we're not
surprised by how roomy it is because unless you're in the front seats really
not all that roomy either but what has surprised us is how well it drives for
how big it is this is a really small SUV but it has a sophistication and a poise
to it when going down the road that makes it feel like a much larger more
expensive vehicle and speaking of cost to start with it's just over $20,000 for
a base model and if you load it up with all the options like a turbo engine and
all-wheel drive you're looking at just under 30 grand out the door these are in
Hyundai showrooms right now and if you'd like to learn more you can read all
about it at cars.com