I'm going to offer a few comments on our rather unsporty Tucson, if anyone is interested in a small "SUV". We all see them everywhere, I used to disdain them, I'm not a partial convert, they are still boring, but in kind of a good day for many.
Ours is the hybrid model, top of the line, I paid around $40K for it in 2024. It has adequate acceleration, gas mileage around town and in the mountains is quite good, high 30s, mileage on a freeway has improved from around 28 when new to around 33 now, driving around 80 mph. It does better in hilly terrain because on a downslope it will transition to full EV. That transition is barely perceptible, they did a great job on engine cutoff and back on at stop lights etc. Maybe it's harder on the starter, it happens quite a bit of course any time you ease off the throttle. A few times I've sat in a parking lot with the engine turned on waiting for my wife a few minutes and it sits in electric for 3 minutes or so before the engine starts, so it drives the AC using the battery, which is interesting.
It has ventilated seats which works pretty well, we had this in our Caddy CTS and it barely made any difference. So far in 15,000 miles and two plus years nothing has broken. The seating room is good, I don't have my seat all the way back, and a normal person can sit behind me "OK". I usually move it up a bit. Space in the back is typical, pretty good, enough for us. Handling is ... "OK", I almost never push it, I did a few times to get a feel for how it would react in emergency manuevering. It has AWD which is probably not really needed for us. The most surprisingly thing to me is how quiet it is at speed, I didn't expect that, I didn't test drive it on a freeway. The seats are decent enough, so long trips are "OK", though I usually stop around 3 hours. We do a couple long trips a year down to Northport, which is a really boring drive.
My wife REALLY likes it. She's an acceleration maven, that's her number one thing on a car I think, and it's fine for her. The low end grunt is aided by the electric motor, then the turbo kicks in without being able to detect boost.
Anyway, for us, it's suitable. Competitors include the Honda CRV which has a weird, to me, transmission, the Toyota RAV4 which seems fine, and the Mazda. The BMW X1 is more frisky but has the dual clutch transmission that reviewers say is wonky at creeping speed.
