2024 Hyundai Staria Hybrid van revealed, Australia ‘very keen’

The 2024 Hyundai Staria Hybrid has been announced for South Korea with people mover and cargo-carrier options.

It is currently limited to Hyundai’s domestic market with no export plans for the Staria Hybrid confirmed at this stage.

However, Hyundai Australia says it is “very keen” to expand its hybrid line-up – where an electrified Staria Load would become the first commercial van to offer a full-hybrid powertrain locally.

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“Staria Hybrid is currently only available in the domestic (Korean) market. We are very keen to add Staria Hybrid to our rapidly expanding hybrid portfolio Down Under, however nothing is confirmed at this time,” said a Hyundai Australia spokesperson.

Like the related Santa Fe and Kia Carnival – which are all based on Hyundai-Kia’s ‘N3’ monocoque platform – the Staria Hybrid features a 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine matched to an electric motor for a 180kW and around 370Nm total system output.

It has a six-speed automatic transmission instead of the eight-speed units found in petrol V6 (200kW/331Nm) and turbo-diesel (130kW/430Nm) versions of the Staria and Staria Load.

The Korean Car Blog [↗] reports the 2024 Hyundai Staria has also received minor updates in addition to the newly added hybrid powertrain.

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This includes traffic jam assist, USB-C charge ports, an updated key fob, standard front parking sensors, and a quieter power sliding door with a new warning sound.

Hyundai Australia could not confirm whether we’ll see these revisions applied to local Staria and Staria Load models.

The Hyundai Staria and Staria Load were unveiled in 2021 as the successor to the iMax and iLoad, respectively, which were on sale for 14 years.

Both models switched from a unique rear-wheel-drive commercial van platform to the front-wheel-drive 'N3' passenger car architecture shared with the Santa Fe, Tucson and Sonata – as well as the Kia Sportage, Sorento and Carnival.

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Unlike its Carnival arch-rival, the Staria people mover is all-wheel-drive in diesel form, while Staria Load diesel and Staria V6 petrol models are front-drive.

Hyundai has not confirmed if the Staria Hybrid will be offered with all-wheel drive.

VFACTS new-car sales data reveals 1141 examples of the Hyundai Staria were sold in Australia in 2023, significantly behind the Kia Carnival (11,312) but ahead of the Volkswagen Multivan/California (851), LDV Mifa (452) and Toyota Granvia (112) people movers.

Meanwhile, Hyundai sold 2497 units of the Staria Load, behind the Toyota HiAce (7133), LDV G10 (3638) and Ford Transit Custom (2843).