2021 Honda CR-V vs 2022 Hyundai Santa Fe

Even in a grim year, Honda is selling a staggering number of CR-Vs. The CR-V is the best-selling Honda by far. It’s also the second best-selling compact SUV, just behind the Toyota RAV4. And it's the fifth best-selling vehicle in the U.S., and if you take out all the commercial sales of full-size pickups it’s one of the two best-selling vehicles year in and year out.

So it’s hard to argue against the CR-V formula. Honda’s been at this almost as long as crossovers have been a thing, launching the CR-V in 1997—a year after the RAV4 debuted.

The funny thing is, aside from sales volume, there’s only one thing the CR-V particularly excels at. Aesthetics are subjective, but it would be hard to argue the CR-V is the best looking vehicle in its class. It’s not the cheapest. It’s not the best equipped, especially at the middle to lower trim levels. It’s not the fastest, nor is it the quietest, or the most fuel efficient. It’s not even the most reliable, showing up nowhere in J.D. Power's Most Reliable list.

So what makes it so appealing to American consumers? Let’s see if we can figure that out.

Third-row seats add weight and reduce cargo space, so if you know you don’t need one but still want a roomy, midsize SUV, the 2022 Hyundai Santa Fe is a great choice.

This model year, a new plug-in hybrid version is the big news, but the standard 2022 Santa Fe model lineup gains a new XRT trim level that is, in Hyundai’s words, “designed to convey an outdoor lifestyle.” In plain language, that means it gets a mixture of blacked-out exterior details, unique black alloy wheels, additional lower body cladding, fake front and rear skid plates, nearly useless running boards, and roof-rail crossbars that look like basket handles.

More importantly, Hyundai also expands the availability of blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and Safe Exit Assist to the Santa Fe SE trim level, albeit not until later in the year.