Hyundai Kona Review 2024

It most certainly is if you’re after a small SUV that makes you stand out from the crowd. The wacky, futuristic styling of the second-generation Kona might not be to everyone’s taste, but there’s no denying that it gets you noticed. It’ll also suit you if you’re after a roomy, solidly made family car that comes with generous equipment for a competitive price, and if you fancy the peace-of-mind of a long warranty, the Kona has you covered there, too.

Of the combustion-engined Konas, we reckon most folk will be best off with the entry-level 1.0-litre petrol. It’s peppy enough and refined enough to keep life easy and civilised, and it will be the most affordable version to buy and run overall. We’d steer you clear of the 1.6-litre turbo due to its clunky power delivery, and we’d give you that steer even if choosing that engine didn’t make the Kona expensive. Which it does. The hybrid is good, but it is the most expensive version to buy.

On the trim level front, entry-level Advance trim comes with most of what you need, but N Line trim does add some desirable extras for an affordable sum, plus it looks a bit sharper. N Line S and Ultimate trims are properly tooled up, but they're expensive.

As a small SUV, the Hyundai Kona has no shortage of rivals to contend with. As we’ve said, this is a booming sector of the car market that no mainstream manufacturer can afford to ignore, so all of them have at least one offering, if not two, or even three. Volkswagen is one of those with three in the form of the T-Cross, the T-Roc and the Taigo, and there are also similar offerings from elsewhere in the Volkswagen Group in the form of the Seat Arona and Skoda Kamiq. The Nissan Juke and Renault Captur are also popular alternatives, while the Citroen C3 Aircross, Vauxhall Mokka, Peugeot 2008, Honda HR-V, Ford Puma and Toyota Yaris Cross are also vying for your cash.

The interior of the Hyundai Kona is a bit of a mixed bag. The design is quite futuristic, with a minimalist dashboard and big digital screens, but many of the materials used are decidedly old-school. The shiny silver finish on the centre console, and the bank of sturdy grey plastic buttons beneath it, look like something from out of a 1990s Toyota: it all looks hard-wearing enough to survive a nuclear blast, but it’s not exactly a feast for the fingertips.

You’ll also find hard, unappealing plastic on the doors and - most notably - on top of the dashboard. Sure, you could also level similar criticism at many of the Kona’s rivals, but many of them still manage to feel a good bit posher.

All versions of the Hyundai Kona get the same basic infotainment system, with higher-spec cars getting a few added bits of functionality bolted on. However, ‘basic’ is not a word you’d use to describe the system itself. It’s based around a pair of 12.3-inch digital screens built into the same curved display - in similar style to the latest BMW and Mercedes efforts - with the left-hand screen taking care of the infotainment functionality and the right-hand one serving as your driving instruments. The system looks great, and the touchscreen is also very simple to use, with logical menus, fast responses and impressive screen sensitivity. The digital dials look good as well, but the layout isn’t as configurable as it is with some such systems.

Functionality supported across the board includes navigation, Bluetooth, DAB radio, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. You also get steering wheel controls and front and rear USB C charging points. N Line trim adds an additional wireless charging pad for your phone, while Ultimate and N Line S trims get a BOSE premium sound system with seven speakers and a subwoofer.

By and large, the first-generation Hyundai Kona was incredibly well received by the people that bought it, but one of the few aspects of the car that came in for repeated criticism was its practicality. In short, rear-seat space was too tight and the boot was too small.

Happily, things have improved greatly with the latest Kona, and that’s largely because it’s been supersized. The length of the car has grown by 14 centimetres overall, with six of those centimetres sitting between the front wheels and rear wheels. If you’re interested, the Kona is 4350mm long, and 1825mm wide (not including door mirrors).

That means there’s now way more room in the rear seats - just like there is up front - with plenty of legroom and headroom even for tall adults. You don’t get the clever sliding rear seat you do in some rivals that lets you use the available space for passengers or luggage as required, but the fact that there’s now way more boot space - 466 litres regardless of which powertrain you choose - means that this is no problem. 

The back seat folds down in a 40/20/40 split in all but the entry-level Advance version, which is more versatile than the 60/40 split you get in many rivals, and a moveable boot floor allows you to level off both the load lip and the step up to the folded seatbacks, although those seatbacks do lie at a slight angle.

We’ll ignore the Hyundai Kona Electric for now as we’ve reviewed that version separately, so let’s kick this section off with the entry-level engine, the three-cylinder 1.0-litre turbo. Despite its small size, it packs a healthy 120PS, and it can be mated to either a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. We tried it with the former and, while it’s not hugely fast, it does feel rather more willing and eager than you might expect, with muscular pull from low engine speeds and a willingness to rev. You might not love the lazy throttle response: press the pedal when you’re already on the move and there’s a small delay before the power arrives, and when you lift off the pedal, there’s a similar delay before the revs fall. That aside, though, performance is absolutely fine and the engine doesn’t feel out of its depth on the motorway, either, so we think this will be the engine of choice for most drivers. Stat-fans might want to know that the manual we tried does 0-62mph in 11.8 seconds, while the auto trims a tenth off that.

We’d certainly recommend the 1.0-litre over the 1.6 turbo in the Hyundai Kona, the most powerful engine in the range with 198PS. Again, it can be had with either a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, with the 0-62mph happening in 8.7 seconds with the manual and 7.8 seconds with the auto. We tried it with the latter, and it’s a pairing that we would frankly avoid at all costs. The gearbox works in a really clumsy way: pressing the accelerator pedal sometimes results in no forward momentum whatsoever, and it sometimes results in all of the power being delivered all at once, and you never know which you’re going to get. Not only does this make the car all-but-impossible to drive smoothly, it can also make for some pretty hairy moments when pulling out of junctions or manoeuvring. And, when you get your foot down, it doesn't ultimately feel all that fast, certainly nowhere near as fast as the power output suggests.

The priciest powertrain option is the self-charging hybrid, which uses a different 1.6-litre petrol engine and pairs it with an electric motor and a dual-clutch gearbox - this time a six-speeder - for a combined output of 141PS. At low speeds and under a gentle throttle, it’ll run around for short bursts on electric-only power (although don’t go expecting dozens of miles of electric range like you get with a plug-in hybrid), and when the petrol engine cuts back in, it does so smoothly. The 0-62mph dash takes 11.2 seconds, so it’s not exactly fast, but performance is eager enough to keep life easy.

The 1.0-litre engine does give off a three-cylinder thrum in the Hyundai Kona, but the noise levels are such that it manages to be characterful rather than troublesome, and you won’t feel too much in the way of vibration coming through the steering wheel and pedals. 

The 1.6 petrol we tried was less refined, however: when the automatic gearbox sends the revs sky-high, which it does on a fairly regular basis, the engine sounds thrashy and coarse, while the Jekyll-and-Hyde transmission also makes for very jerky progress.

If you want the most refined drivetrain of the lot in the Hyundai Kona, go for the hybrid. It’s near-silent for the short periods that it can roll around on electric power, and it’s smooth, quiet and sedate when the petrol engine is running. In all Konas, wind- and road noise are present, but not problematic at any point.

What is problematic, though, is the ludicrous amount of bonging and beeping you’re subjected to by the car’s various driver assistance systems. There are so many that, half the time, you have no idea exactly what it is that you’re being warned about, and the assault on your eardrums is totally relentless, even if you’re driving like some sort of modern-day saint. You can switch the systems off (not something we’d usually recommend, but we’ll make an exception in this case) with some faffing around on the touchscreen, but the systems are automatically reinstated every time you switch the car on.

The amount of safety kit you get on your Hyundai Kona largely depends on what trims you go for. All trims - including the Advance and N Line grades - get a suite of driver assistance aids that Hyundai calls SmartSense, and this includes functions such as Downhill Brake Control, Driver Attention Warning, eCall, Forward Collision Avoidance Assist with Car, Pedestrian, Cycle and Junction Turning functions, Hill-start Assist Control, Intelligent Speed Limit Assist, Lane Keep Assist, Lane Follow Assist and Leading Vehicle Departure Alert. 

Upgrade to the Ultimate or N Line S trims, and you also get Blind Spot Collision Avoidance Assist, Rear Cross Traffic Collision Avoidance Assist, Parking Distance Warning (side function), Parking Collision Avoidance Assist (reverse function), Safe Exit Warning and Surround View Monitor.

With such a comprehensive amount of gadgetry on board, it might be a little surprising that the Kona only achieved four out of five stars in Euro NCAP crash tests when it was tested in 2023. However, that might be more of a reflection of how tough the tests are to ace these days, rather than any massive deficiency with the Kona’s safety levels.

Hyundai has a fabulous reputation for reliability, and that’s backed up by the data. In the most recent 2022 HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, the brand placed 9th in the list of the top ten most reliable manufacturers with an average score of 9.52 out of ten. The latest Kona is too new to have contributed to that impressive showing, but the bigger Tucson SUV came second in the list of the most reliable cars, and the previous Kona Electric featured in the top ten - placing fourth, behind two other Hyundais - of the most satisfying cars to own overall.

If that’s not enough to give you peace of mind, you’ll likely get it from the Korean firm’s tremendous five-year, unlimited-mileage warranty, which is one of the most generous arrangements in the business, and for particularly high-mileage drivers, probably the best overall.

The most basic versions of the Hyundai Kona sit in group 16 (out of 50) for insurance, meaning that they won’t exactly be cheap to insure, but they won’t be ruinous, either. That rises to group 18 if you team the same powertrain with a loftier trim level, and classifications are about the same for hybrid versions. Go for the high-powered 1.6T variant, and your insurance grouping rises to between 25 and 28, so premiums will be a lot pricier on these versions.

Select one of the pure petrol-powered Konas, and you’ll pay the same flat rate of tax as you will on all petrol and diesel cars, that flat rate currently sitting at £180. Go for the hybrid version, and you’ll qualify for the annual discount given to alternatively fuelled cars. However, this discount amounts to a tenner per year, so your decision to buy the hybrid certainly shouldn’t be based solely on tax, given that it’s the most expensive of the various powertrains (except the electric one) to buy.

Cars that cost over £40,000 when brand new, including the optional extras fitted, are subject to an annual ‘luxury car’ surcharge of £390 per year on top of that for a period of five years from year two onwards. However, no Kona currently breaks that barrier no matter how much you spec it up.

You can go in one of two directions with the spec of your Kona. Entry-level Advance and high-spec Ultimate trims aim to offer a certain brand of restrained luxury, while N Line and N Line S trim take a sportier approach. As standard, the Advance comes with a generous amount of kit including 17-inch alloy wheels (18s on hybrid models), height adjustment for both front seats, dual zone climate control, automatic headlights and wipers, cruise control (smart cruise control with stop and go function on hybrid and DCT models), an electric parking brake, front- and rear parking sensors with rear camera, and keyless entry with start/stop button. That’s on top of all the infotainment and safety kit we talked about earlier. 

N Line models come with extra styling goodies inside and out, such as a dedicated front- and rear bumper design, side skirts, 18-inch alloys, twin exhaust tips and black gloss door mirrors, specific cloth seat trim and aluminium pedals. The upgrade from Advance trim also earns you a small slice of extra luxury kit, including heated front and rear seats, heated steering wheel, ambient lighting and a powered tailgate.

Ultimate takes the spec of the Advance and adds a full-width horizon centre daytime running light with full projection LED headlamps, three-zone climate control, powered-, heated- and ventilated front seats upholstered in black leather (or a no-cost grey leather option) and an opening sunroof, plus the extra infotainment and safety goodies. N LIne S trim does without the sunroof, but other than that it has pretty much the same kit as the Ultimate, as well as the sportier styling.