2020 Hyundai Tucson vs Toyota RAV4

What's the difference?

The only thing you should really consider is this: does the Highlander do more than the Elite? The answer is probably no. Most of the stuff in the Highlander is cosmetic or nice to have and as the car moves inexorably toward its end, the compelling reason for a petrol Highlander is the prosect of a hefty discount. Get one and you've got a ripper motor.

But, sometimes, you just have to have the top-of-the-range and I completely understand that. So if that's your motivation, there is nothing in this package that should give you pause for thought. As I said, it has held on very well over the past four or five years with lots of little tweaks keeping the Tucson well and truly in the game.

My feelings of hope for improvements from Toyota have given way to expectation. Traditionally its cars have been safe, well-built, and high quality, just boring to drive and imbued with a bit much of a "just enough" attitude. The RAV4 GX Hybrid might be nearly forty grand on the road but it has an excellent safety package, genuine fuel-saving hybrid technology and plenty of room for you and your stuff.

Fun to drive SUVs don't always have the blue halo of electrification. Somehow Toyota has injected (a sensible amount of) fun into the RAV4 which is kind of funny given how much money the brand has spent pretending it's fun. But it's happened and that's a good thing.

The MY20 update slapped a new nose and tail on the Tucson. I'm not entirely convinced by the really chunky bit of chrome on the inner corners of the headlights and what was once a quite balanced and restrained design has been blown out a bit. The new grille is an overall improvement but, to my eyes, could do with less shiny chrome and a slightly lighter hand.

The interior update is better, with a lot more i30 goodness added in, including a new central strack with a much nicer touchscreen and a general lift of the quality of the materials. The Tucson's interior is one of the lighter ones in the segment and does it without resorting to the coloured patches in the Mazda that always look a bit cheap. If you go looking you'll find some hard plastic but there's a lot less of it these days.

I do like the new RAV4 more than the old one. A few angles are a little too... um, angly, and from the rear seems to have pinched its look from the VW Tiguan. Sometimes in traffic I double take because the badges and tail-lights don't match. I doubt it's completely deliberate, but the resemblance is there.

Further similarity to the competition is evident in the nose, with a distinct whiff of Forester. Either way, the RAV4 is more interesting and much sharper than its flabby predecessor.

I really dig the interior, though. Not so much for its beauty - its left-field competitor, the Peugeot 3008 wins that race hands down - but for, again, how much better it is than the old car, and how clever it is.

Everything looks and feels much better, with nicer materials and some lovely touches like the industrial motif in the rubber bits that line things like the the cupholder, boot floor and the tray cut into the dash. The rubberised climate control dials are a nice touch, adding a halo of ruggedness and practicality. I prefer the cloth interior, too.

While the Tucson doesn't look very big, it seems to pack a fair bit in, something we discovered since our stewardship of one for six months. With a 488-litre boot that expands to 1478, there's a fair chunk of space here, bettered only really by the slidey-seat Tiguan and five-seat Honda CR-V.

For smaller items, there are four cupholders and the same number of bottleholders. You can also get some bits and pieces into the spare space in the spare wheel.

Back-seat dwellers will appreciate the reasonably generous legroom and headroom unless they're sitting in the middle seat, which isn't a great place to be unless you're quite thin and short. The front seats are very comfortable and while the driving position is very hatchbackey – Hyundai is excellent at getting everything right – you still have a good view out.

The RAV is very nicely packaged, which isn't something you can say about the Corolla or C-HR. Front seat passengers score a big phone sized cubby hole in the console as well as couple of litres underneath the armrest along with a little tray.

The two cupholders are placed just ahead of the armrest. The dash also sports a Kluger-style split, thoughtfully lined with rubber for your passenger's bits and pieces. Just the one USB port, though, which is a shame - the GXL and up have another four. Seems a bit stingy for rear-seat passengers.

Rear seat dwellers score two cupholders and all four doors have bottle holders. There is also plenty of space back there with good head and leg room and air-con vents.

The boot has a clever two-position floor to eke out a few more litres if you need them. In its lowest position you have 580 litres (assuming you don't have an optional full-size spare).

Set it higher, and level with the boot loading lip, you have 542 litres. As is Toyota's habit, the company doesn't have an official figure for a folded seat situation.

The GX Hybrid is obviously a bit more than (and a commensurate improvement on) the 2.0-litre GX, costing $35,490 ($39,606 drive-away) before any of the very skinny options list is added. So skinny it's basically a full-size spare and only available in this grade.

Base models just aren't what they used to be, especially not at Toyota, and particularly not when the price starts with a 35. You get 17-inch alloys, a six-speaker stereo, dual-zone climate control, reversing camera, central locking, front and rear parking sensors, active cruise control, sat nav, auto LED headlights, auto wipers and a space-saver spare.

It's also a Toyota with (clears throat) Apple CarPlay and Android Auto on its prominent 8.0-inch touchscreen. Massive win.

Joining the belated digital revolution is DAB+ radio with a dire interface that reminds you how bad the embedded software is, despite a hefty upgrade in the last year or so.

I should note the car I drove was a pre-November 1, 2019 build and was yet to have CarPlay activated, but the identical system on the C-HR and Corolla has it.

The Tucson leaves South Korea with a 1.6-litre turbo four-cylinder engine dishing up 130kW and 265Nm. It's found all through Hyundai's and Kia's range and while its outputs aren't startling, they're pretty good, 8kw and 60Nm more than the 2.0-litre in the lower models. It's a fair way off the 400Nm of the diesel, though.

Power gets to all four wheels via Hyundai's own seven-speed twin-clutch automatic. The all-wheel drive system is, obviously, not a hard-core off-road version.

The Tucson is usefully quick off the mark, cracking the 9-second mark for the sprint to 100km/h – not bad for almost 1700kg of mid-size SUV.

The cheapest RAV4 Hybrid comes with a 2.5-litre four-cylinder engine allied to an electric motor and a CVT auto driving the front wheels. Toyota is famously conservative with its mixed-power numbers, quoting a combined 160kW (up from 152kW in the non-hybrid and 127kW in the GX 2.0-litre) and down from the AWD's 163kW.

The company will only quote the combustion engine's torque figure, which is a fairly ho-hum 221Nm. It's clearly more than that with the electric motor boosting away, but alas, we don't have a proper number.

If you feel so inclined, the GX Hybrid will only tow a 480kg trailer (braked or unbraked), which rises to 1500kg braked for the AWD model.

The official combined cycle figure of 7.7L/100km looks a little high compared to some of its rivals, but I've always found Hyundai's testing to be a bit more honest than many others. We got 8.2L/100km in mostly suburban driving, which I reckon is good going.

This figure also comes without any stop-start cleverness, which – weirdly – Hyundai still doesn't do.

Given it's a hybrid, this is a rather important part of the package. The official Toyota figure comes in at 4.8L/100km on the combined cycle. 

Here's the astonishing bit. I got it. A week of driving around as I would normally and I scored an indicated 4.8L/100km. I did a bit of digging to see if there is a corresponding WLTP figure (as opposed to the ADR) and found it was bang on 4.8L/100km.

It's lucky, really, because the tank is a smidge on the small side (for long runs, anyway) at 55 litres.

When the Tucson landed it instantly became – as far as I was concerned – the benchmark, particularly in front-wheel drive form. I know it's getting tired, but the local team who tweaks the steering and suspension before the cars go on sale here are absolute guns. None of this Nurburgring nonsense, but a sensible balance of ride and handling to get you through the trials and tribulations of Australian road design and maintenance.

The turbo models with the bigger rims are not quite as successful on the ride and handling front as the 2.0-litre front drivers. I'd still take it over the CX-5 for ride and handling, but it's a much closer-run thing. The steering is really positive and the car does go where you point it, something that's been a hallmark of Hyundai's locally-tuned cars.

On that subject, the Tucson has, by and large, held up pretty well over the years of its current existence. It still feels pretty good, the only real blot being the hesitation from the seven-speed twin-clutch transmission. You need to have the car in Sport mode to get it to respond which rules out turbo lag and rules in a dithering gearbox. It will be interesting to see if the next-gen Tucson will have Hyundai's new eight-speed twin-clutch or the eight-speeder in the Santa Fe.

On the move, the Tucson is quiet and composed, for the most part riding really well on the big 19-inch wheels. When the road gets a bit crusty, the bigger rubber and lack of compliance from the sidewalls does count against the Highlander. Rear-seat passengers might be a bit unsettled by the way the rear can crash a bit into large potholes but, other than that, everything is fine. 

Once you wind it up, it moves aong very smoothly and happily indeed, the small-ish numbers from the engine pushing the Tucson along without fuss. It's still a very impressive package, really, with just the mildly annoying seven-speed dither.

Toyota's experience with hybrid is unquestioned. The company has been doing it for donkeys, but mostly in the terminally dull Prius.

Now it's working its way through to other cars, including the refreshed C-HR, last year's all-new Corolla and here in the RAV4. This isn't the plug-in hybrid overseas markets get, which is a shame, but given what we already know about the fuel economy, not a massive let down.

During the week I had the car, I tried to see how fast I could go under electric power only. The battery is a small one and anything more than breathing on the throttle starts the combustion engine. A leisurely trundle down a long straight street near me saw 36km/h come up on the screen before hydrocarbons stepped in.

The hybrid system does a great job of getting you off the line, which in traffic is the bit that burns a lot of fuel. You can stay on electric in stop-start messiness when you're gentle on the throttle but it's not like, say, an Ioniq PHEV where you can get a good shove from the electric motor.

While it does whir and click a bit, the system is otherwise unobtrusive, although the initial bite on the brakes is a bit soft, which is understandable. You have to get used to it and it's not something from which other hybrids I've driven suffer. The transition from energy recovery to actual braking is a little awkward but once you're familiar, you'll stop noticing.

In terms of dynamics, the RAV4 is really nice to drive. There's enough feel in the steering to know what's going on, it rides well and responds to your inputs without the traditional Toyota pause or protests from either engine or tyres.

It doesn't roll too much, which is a massive improvement. And I'm sure a better set of tyres (over the OE Bridgestone Alenzas, which sound like an Aldi brand) would improve its overall grip.

I drove an AWD RAV4 straight after this one and I can't say there was a marked difference. So, unless you need all four wheels in action, you won't need to spend the extra.

The RAV4 ships with seven airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, trailer sway control, blind-spot monitor and reverse cross-traffic alert.

'Safety Sense' is standard across the range and includes lane departure warning, lane keep assist, forward AEB (with pedestrian and daytime cyclist detection), road sign recognition, auto high beam and active cruise control.

There are two ISOFIX points and three top-tether anchors.

ANCAP awarded the RAV4 a maximum five star rating in May 2019.

Hyundai offers an impressive 5 year/unlimited kilometre warranty that is dragging other marques into the 21st Century. Only sister brand Kia is better. You also get roadside assist for the duration, as long as you keep servicing the car with them.

Which is probably not a bad idea because you also get lifetime capped price servicing. You can also pre-pay servicing for a three-, four- or five-year period (maximum 10,000km per year) for $885, $1290 and $1585 respectively. 

Service intervals are 12 months or 10,000km – de rigeur for Hyundai turbo engines, sadly – and cost $295 for the first three, $405 for the fourth and back to $295 for the fifth. Look, it's not cheap, but you know what you're up for.

And it's cheaper to service than a turbo Vitara, for example.

There isn't much more Toyota can do here - a five year/unlimited kilometre warranty, seven years warranty on the engine and gearbox (if you keep it serviced by the book) and seven years of roadside assist.

On top of that, every 12 months or 15,000km you'll pay $210 per service, which is a bargain. This program covers the first four services, taking you to four years/60,000km.

For most people that's going to be fine and Toyota says it can knock the service over in 90 minutes, if you're happy to wait.