2022 Hyundai Santa Fe vs 2021 Toyota Sequoia

Look around on the road today, and you are bound to see SUVs of all shapes and sizes. From three-row family haulers to subcompact runabouts. There is an SUV for nearly every need and every budget. The 2021 Toyota Sequoia might feel like it's from an earlier wave of the SUV craze, and that’s because it is. Born out of the 1990s SUV-excess-fest, the Sequoia has evolved into a niche vehicle for those who need serious space and truck-like capability.

The current generation of the Sequoia has been around for almost 15 years, and while Toyota has updated it in several ways, there’s no avoiding its age. Even with modern tech and safety features, this is still an aging beast. Can such a dated vehicle still be relevant in the modern car market? And is age really that important to buyers who are looking for tons of space and standard V8 power? Read on to find 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.