Maintaining the Santa Fe’s overall design and dynamics, Hyundai has developed a hybrid study of its mid-size SUV model that will make its world premiere at the Paris motorshow. The Korean automaker’s engineers have equipped the Santa Fe with a proprietary parallel hybrid drive system that mates the 2.4-litre Theta engine to a 41PS electric motor coupled directly to the six-speed automatic transmission. Electrical power is stored in a 270V Lithium Polymer rechargeable battery. -Continued

To further reduce fuel consumption, Hyundai’s engineers also optimized the 2.4-litre petrol engine’s ECU module and revised major driveline and cooling system components. Other improvements over the standard Santa Fe include the low resistance tires and the extended top three gear ratios. Together these changes allow the Santa Fe to deliver a fuel consumption figure in the EU combined cycle of 6.2 lt/100km or 38 mpg US with CO2 emissions of 148 g/km. According to Hyundai, the Santa Fe blue Hybrid can achieve a top speed of 170 km/h or 105 mph.