2020 Hyundai Palisade Wants To Mother You, And Does

The 2020 Hyundai Palisade recognizes what parents need in a huge SUV. They need room for an endless number of munchkins. They need tons of safety features. And they sometimes need everyone in the car to just shut up and listen.

The Palisade is not the only vehicle available today with technology similar to what Hyundai calls “Driver Talk” – it’s been available in Toyota models as “Driver Easy Speak” since 2014 and Honda got into the game with “CabinTalk” – but the way that Hyundai allows the driver to quiet whatever is playing through the audio speakers and enhance the driver’s voice so the rowdy occupants in the third row can hear the message is really the epitome of what the Palisade is all about.

The Palisade is Hyundai’s all-new flagship SUV, and the company has gone all-in on designing an SUV for today’s large families. It’s not an SUV for old curmudgeons – the kind who’d simply yell louder to get the kids to listen – or people who didn’t have a problem with the way things were back in my day. Case in point: a simple, one-button Quiet Mode that will turn off the speakers in the back of the Palisade so that tired children can nap while the driver  listens to Lite Rock through the available Harman Kardon premium sound system up front. It used to be that you would just turn the fader all the way to F9 and call it good, but now you can do this with one touch. Welcome to the 2020 Hyundai Palisade.

This is an SUV (admittedly, one of many) that tries to make all the things easier. There are seven USB ports sprinkled throughout the interior. There’s an available auto-leveling rear suspension to maintain ride height and ground clearance while towing up to 5,000 pounds. There are six drive modes ranging from the modest Eco for the most efficient commute to AWD Lock for 50-50 torque distribution on slippery roads. There are more storage nooks than any reasonable person will need. Available wireless phone charging. Easy-access third row seats and second row seats that slide forward and fold just by pushing a button. 18 cubic feet of cargo space behind the third row. And a smart cruise control that can will automatically adjust speeds when the speed limit changes based on internal map data.

It’s not all “wow, look at that feature list,” though. For example, visibility towards the rear corners is pathetic (as it is in almost every vehicle this large), but Hyundai knows this, which is why the SUV is available with Blind View Monitor, a better version of Honda’s LaneWatch. Hyundai’s system covers both the left and right sides, whereas Honda’s only managed the more-difficult-to-see passenger side of the vehicle. But even with the rear-facing cameras able to display what’s in your rear corners, sometimes you’d just like to be able to see out the darn windows. It’s difficult to do even in an empty Palisade. One solution when the SUV is full would be to turn on Driver Talk, tell all the kids to crouch down below the seat headrests and then try to see what’s behind you. That or keep spinning your head front and back as you glance between what you can see out of the windows and the Blind View Monitor live feed in the dashboard.

Moving on to the outside, there’s no question that the Paliside has striking good looks from the front. From the side and rear, it looks like your average family hauler ca. 2019. Strip away the attractive sheet metal and you’d see similar mechanical bits to what Kia uses in the new Telluride, which means the same 3.8-liter GDI V6 engine that powers the wheels through an 8-speed automatic transmission. There is also an available HTRAC all-wheel drive that monitors vehicle speed and road conditions so that it can control braking between the left and right wheels and shift power between front and rear axles. Swerving through mountainous dirt roads and seasonal logging trails on a recent test drive of the Palisade in Idado, the SUV didn’t inspire the full confidence that I’d want if the back were full of children. Of course, if I were taking them all to hockey practice, then I’d probably be driving slower and on normal roads, places where the Palisade was more than up to my pedal requests.

Where the Palisade shines is in its safety technology. The important standard features that come with the $31,550 SE trim include lane keep assist, driver attention warning, forward collision avoidance assist and rear occupant alert. The $33,500 SEL trim adds blind-spot and rear cross-traffic collision avoidance assist and safe exit assist. This last item won’t let the rear doors open if the system detects traffic approaching from behind the SUV. Finally, the $44,700 Limited trim adds in the blind view monitor mentioned above (because only people with money deserve to really what’s behind the Palisade, apparently) and surround view monitor.

All in all, the Palisade offers a lot for a reasonable price. For anyone who needs to carry oodles of poodles – or children – and wants to feel safe while doing to, this is an SUV most certainly worth a look. There’s no question that the midsize SUV market that the Palisade competes in is stuffed to the gills with excellent options. There are good reasons to choose the Volkswagen Atlas or the Honda Pilot or the Mazda CX-9, for example. And there are now good reasons to choose the Palisade as well.