Hyundai Kona 2024 review: Long-term | Part 2

Okay, so if you’ve been following these dispatches — and, frankly, you’d be mad not have been — you’ll know my long-term chariot isn’t just any Hyundai Kona, but the cheapest, petrol-powered variant.

And as we’ve touched on, there’s so much bang for your buck on offer here it’s hard to see how you could justify stepping up from our $32,000 vehicle to the more expensive $39,500 Kona Premium.

I don’t know about you, but $7.5K isn’t chump change in the Chesto household, and given the entry-level model arrives with 18-inch alloys, LED headlights, dual-zone climate control, a big 12.3-inch central display with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and a decent six-speaker stereo – plus there's a with a wireless charge pad and USB ports aplenty – I don’t know that I could justify the price jump.

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Sure, the Premium adds a second 12.3-inch digital instrument display, better eight-speaker Bose audio, heated and ventilated front seats, partial-leather trim and navigation. But honestly, I haven’t missed any of that so far.

Well, maybe I’ve missed the easier-to-clean seats, given my dog has an infuriating habit of slobbering on them, but I haven’t $7500 missed them, if you know what I mean?

So, with that covered, we move onto the second big question, and that is how much SUV do you actually need?

I know the trend is to go to the biggest, heaviest, thirstiest SUV your budget can stretch to, but I think it’s time we take a closer look at that trajectory.

It’s bonkers. And frankly, unless you have kids — and lots of them — that require a larger SUV, I’d argue a clever small SUV like the Kona will be more than enough vehicle to fulfil your cargo-carrying needs, and will save you a small fortune in the process.

Christmas is a time of blown budgets, massive presents, long road trips and beach adventures, and never – not once – did I wish I had something bigger over the holidays.

A 65-inch television, new in its massive box can be popped in the boot, seats folded down, easily enough. (Image: Andrew Chesterton)

A six-foot surfboard slides straight in through the boot, and ends up with its nose nestled between the front seats. A 65-inch television, new in its massive box (and also not mine, I'm afraid) can be popped in the boot, seats folded down, easily enough.

A weekend’s worth of camping gear disappears no problem, including a massive off-road cart to wheel the stuff around on arrival. And enough bags, food, dog supplies — including bed — and beach gear can be carried from Sydney to the NSW south coast without so much as breaking a sweat. 

We have really put the Kona through its paces to date, and through a lot of kilometres. We've had five people on board, a boot full of stuff, knocked off trips short and long and have never felt overly cramped or like we needed to carry more stuff.

The Kona is technically a small SUV, though its dimensions begin to stretch that definition, and competes in a category that delivered 174,481 vehicles last year. 

Vehicles the next size up – the mid-size SUV segment, home to models like the Hyundai Tucson, Mazda CX-5 and Toyota RAV4 – found 268,480 buyers over the same period. 

Step up again, this time to the large-SUV segment — home to the Ford Everest, Nissan Pathfinder, Toyota Kluger etc — and there were a total 155,970 buyers.

The entry-level Kona arrives with 18-inch alloys. (Image: Andrew Chesterton)

Finally, there were more than 23,000 people shopping in the upper-large segment, for things like the Nissan Patrol and Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series.

And do you mean to tell me there were almost half a million new-car shoppers last year for whom a vehicle the size of the Hyundai Kona wouldn’t have been big enough?

Bollocks, I say. So it must be something else, and I suspect a lot of it has to do with the “mine’s bigger than yours” effect.

Don't believe me? Just look at the pick-up truck segment. Or better yet, compare a HSV Maloo and a RAM 1500 side by side. Honestly, if things keep growing at the rate they have been, your next tradie will be pulling up in an 18-wheeler.

The Kona is also frugal enough — though, at around 9.0L per hundred kilometres, it could definitely be more frugal — and powerful enough to propel you through the city, even if it does get buzzy and noisy on the freeway.

So, I ask again, how much car is enough? Because for me, a Kona-sized SUV has filled the vehicle-shaped hole in my life pretty snuggly.

Acquired: October 2023

Distance travelled this month: 1679km

Odometer: 9042km

Average fuel consumption this month: 9.1L/100km