John Rush combines Drive Radio and Rush to Reason for a detailed review of the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Hybrid Calligraphy AWD. After spending a full week behind the wheel, John breaks down the SUV’s impressive fuel economy, quiet ride, luxury-level interior, seating comfort, hybrid performance, and surprising value for the price. The episode explores Hyundai’s design improvements, technology integration, cargo space, driver ergonomics, and why this three-row SUV may be one of the best overall values in today’s automotive market.
00:00:00 Introduction and Overview of the Hyundai Palisade Hybrid
Okay, that time of the week where we combine Drive Radio and Rush to Reason together. And I’ve got a new car review for you. This one I did the driving of. Had the privilege of driving this the entire week. Actually, I’ve got one more day in it. But I can already tell you that this is a car that I have thoroughly enjoyed. And I wasn’t sure, being very honest, wasn’t sure that I would initially. 2026 Hyundai Palisade Hybrid, the calligraphy model. And it’s an all-wheel drive version. The 2.5-cylinder hybrid system. uh h-track all-wheel drive and the car works phenomenal it’s a good looking car as well by the way and the interior is absolutely gorgeous this car by the way and i would have thought would be much higher price than it actually is for really a full-size suv 60 000 and some change is what it comes in at 29 miles to the gallon is what it’s rated on economy, and I have driven it almost a solid week. One more day, it’s a solid week, and I haven’t put an ounce of gas in it, and I’m just a little under a half a tank, and I have driven it a ton this past week. You guys know my trip and my miles per day, and I’ve driven it a ton, plus did a bunch of driving over the weekend. I come to the station six days a week, as you guys all know. What are the highlights of this car? So agronomically, when you sit inside the vehicle, it’s view out everything as far as buttons, controls, how CarPlay works and so on. And yes, they have Android Auto for you, Android users. The way all of that works, seamless. Piece of cake. My wife even made a comment, and we had our best friends in the car. Everybody commented on how great the interior looks, how beautiful it is, just the high-quality workmanship and the material that they’re using. And this car happens to have a white interior, and it is spectacular. It looks absolutely beautiful. The way they’ve arranged this and have captain’s chairs, so two buckets in front, two buckets in the middle, then a third-row seat, and plenty of cargo room. in the rear if you’ve got the seat down plenty of cargo room great all around what i would call full-size suv they may not call it that i would it’s got plenty of seating and room inside again we had friends in it this weekend and very very comfortable car that works extremely well power is good with the hybrid system it works fabulous and the one thing that everybody has commented that’s been in the vehicle so far is how quiet The interior is, and it is, folks. You can even be on the phone, on the cell phone inside of the car, and hardly anybody knows you’re even driving. You’d be going down the interstate at 65 miles an hour, and nobody knows that you’re hardly talking on the phone. It’s that quiet on the inside. And again, everything laid out very well, buttons, controls, the console, the seat, the position, how everything just fits you. It’s a very comfortable car to drive. And by the way, it’s a good-looking car. as well so again initially wasn’t sure um i’ll be straight up honest wasn’t sure what i was getting into what kind of a car would actually be like uh what would the quality be like the fitment you know the workmanship fit finish all of that folks no complaints not a single rattle whistle uh air noise nothing again going down the road it’s as quiet on the inside as you can imagine and at 30 miles to the gallon for a full-size suv uh you can’t beat that so again 2026 Hyundai Palisade, this is the hybrid calligraphy model. Now, they make models less than this where you could save money. The calligraphy just happens to be everything, all bells and whistles. And, again, it has one of the nicest interiors that you’ll find. In fact, some of the things that they did really quick on the interior that I really like, which shows they’re really paying attention to certain things, is most of the time high-end vehicles have a door handle that stretches from one end of the panel to the other, front to back. A lot of the not high-end vehicles, they’ll just put like a little holder where your hand grabs. this one again they’ve got a slot all the way down the entire panel now what does that do it’s not just so you can put your hand anywhere you want to it just makes things look that much richer and smoother because you don’t see that little indentation where you would normally have your hand you know where your fingers would normally go just little things like that that they did to actually make the vehicle in my opinion look richer but again for sixty thousand dollars and some say well that’s a lot of money John well Yeah, it is, although not really. The average price of a new car is about $55,000. So to get this many… Creature comforts and features and benefits and so on for, really, $5,000 more than the average price of a car. Good job, Hyundai. Honestly, good job. Again, great power, great fuel economy. Car works fabulous. The only thing on it that I’ve gotten used to, a little bit weird to begin with, is the on-off for the engine, so the start-stop for the engine, is actually on the gear shift. Kind of comes out of the side of the column. And then to go to drive and reverse, you twist the gear shift, either forward for drive, back for reverse. Again, not a big deal, but there’s nothing in the console. They freed up all the console room by not having a knob or anything there. They literally put a stick on the side of the wheel that comes right out of the side of the column and out of the column itself. And that’s the controls I was just mentioning. You turn the car on and off there, and you go drive neutral reverse in that same area. And then to park, you just push the end of the stick. There’s a button that puts it back in park. Now, if you shut the vehicle off, it automatically goes to park, which is a lot of what new vehicles do anyways. But Hyundai, great job. Hats off. Five-star rating, if you ask me. Honestly, is it a car that I would own? You know, absolutely it is. In fact, we commented, even all the folks that were in it, that, yeah, this is a car that anybody would own. And I would encourage you, if you’re in the market for that full-size, I’m still calling it a full-size SUV, all-wheel drive, 30-mile-to-the-gallon hybrid vehicle, I would look no further than the 2026 Palisade. Again, you can save money on that end of things by not buying the full-end calligraphy if you would like. But I tell you what, it is a really nice vehicle. So I would tell you that if you’ve got the ability to do that, do that. You can go test drive one of these at your local Hyundai dealer. When you do, let them know that John and Richard Rush, both from Drive Radio and Rush to Reason, sent you. This is John Rush from Rush to Reason and Drive Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Check out more of our podcasts at RushToReason.com or Drive-Radio.com.
