I guess Hyundai is trying to do the same thing with the new Tucson hybrid, which might explain my need to leave the big city and get in among the trees for this little adventure.
And the whiskers of the Lorax? Yeah, well the Hyundai doesn’t exactly have those, but – because this is an all-new design – it does have a particularly impressive and distinctive face, thanks to those spectacular ‘cascading wing’ lights framing the now familiar Hyundai grille.
Once the wing lights have caught your attention, it’s impossible to avoid playing the game of count the creases.
The Hyundai Tucson has been marketed as ‘cutting edge’ and the crease lines found on almost every panel look very sharp – in every sense of the word.
‘Cutting edge’ is more than a skin-deep characteristic. Hyundai would like you to be aware of the cutting-edge tech under the bonnet with this, the self-charging hybrid version of its medium SUV.
Ooh, its clever this! The Hyundai makes up its own mind as to whether it should be running in EV mode or more conventionally from the 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol engine.
Typically, a self-charger like this would just mean longer times between petrol fills, but in the case of the Tucson, it’s better than that, as the 4.6 litre per 100km fuel consumption figure we saw (4.9 says the factory) will testify – AND it seemed to take forever before a fuel stop was needed.
Added to which, when other hybrids switch between petrol and power, there’s a noticeable change. You hear the engine cut in, you can feel the vibration through the wheel and there is a sense of the ICE (internal combustion engine) forming up to propel the vehicle.
The Tucson however, is so refined and so well insulated, the noise vibration and harshness (or NVH in automaker jargon) particularly when it comes to the transfer of power, is reduced to the point that it barely registers. In fact, you often need to check the dash display to verify what power system is driving this incredibly sophisticated SUV.
Sophisticated? Very much so. In the first place, the Tucson has all the advantages of Hyundai’s Smartsense safety equipment – a remarkably comprehensive list of features, including lane departure warning, forward collision avoidance with junction assist, blind spot collision avoidance assist, reversing camera, and much more besides.
The connectivity is all wireless for your Bluetooth/Apple Carplay/Android Auto pad charged phone, but Hyundai’s designers have thoughtfully included four USB ports to ensure no one misses out.
And while driver relevant information is displayed on a 10.25-inch colour TFT display, there is an eight-inch centralised colour touchscreen to share all the information around when it comes to what you’re listening to, where the power is going to and coming from, your camera views and so forth.
Underneath this is a series of buttons for the seat heaters, camera selector, parking sensor sonar control and hill descent control.
You use this for going down slick slopes after switching the 2WD from Drive (tarmac use) to Terrain (off road that’s more serious than your front lawn, but not a competition mode).
During my time with the Tucson, we did gravel, sand and some goopy (technical term) mud, all of which the Terrain mode handled admirably. Nahh, better than that, hybrids aren’t really supposed to do sand-work, but the Tucson can and does – very well.
One thing to be mindful of: the Tucson uses a button transmission selection, much like the Kona. You have reverse at the top, neutral in the middle, drive at the bottom and park to the right.
The system works but you do have to be mindful when shifting from Drive to Reverse or vice versa. The Tucson chimes to let you know it has shifted, but it is a little slower than you might expect of a conventional transmission.
As to the rest, well, the Tucson shows off its speed in the rear where the rear seats can be dropped with the flick of a lever, the shifting between power and petrol or the other way around, and its ability to hustle those sharply creased lines and carve through traffic when the need arises – without too much pain at the pump.
My trip through the trees? Well, I went from the wilds of Woodhill Forest (where you can climb through the pines or hurtle through them on a bicycle) back through the fabulously twisty Riverhead Forest road and onto Coatesville where I traversed the island one way, then went back across at Puhoi to the west, so that I could find Woodcocks Road just shy of Kaipara and barrel through it to reach Warkworth.
Why the zigzag route? Believe it or not, I went looking for places to hug the trees – guiltlessly, since the hybrid was sipping fuel at silly low rates – but every where I went, forest roads were closed, accesses denied, and road works choked even the most scenic routes.
Which is why, Your Honours, I found myself sipping a hot chocolate at Chocolate Brown’s chocolate boutique in Warkworth, pondering the advances Hyundai has made to counter global warming and preserve our planet, while toasting the Lorax, who speaks for the trees.
