2023 Hyundai Tucson and Venue hit by price increases, but there's a good chance you'll get into one before its Toyota RAV4 and Yaris Cross rivals

Hyundai Australia has you covered if you are after an SUV of nearly any shape or size, but some models like its Tucson and Venue have recently jumped up in price.

Specifically, the Venue light SUV has had its before on-roads pricetag hiked by between $100 and $250, while the Tucson has had its price hiked by $250 across the range.

A spokesperson for Hyundai Australia said these increases were to cover increased manufacturing and transport costs, and follow on from similar increases to the i30 and Staria range back in April.

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However, stock for the brand is improving this year, up some 15 per cent across the board that is a “good sign of improving production” - which has helped the Tucson specifically surge some 79 per cent year on year, now in fourth place in the mid-size segment.

In fact, wait times for the Tucson and larger Santa Fe are now less than three months for a brand-new model.

Meanwhile, stock of the brand’s halo electric vehicles - the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 - has also improved out of sight, with a Hyundai spokesperson saying: “There’s over 300 units in the country now, and another 1000 due in the next few months.”

The new-generation Kona is due to start delivery in July.

This is a massive improvement from the Ioniq 5’s launch, when demand was so high the brand wasn’t even taking waiting lists, choosing instead to drop limited batches of a few hundred units at a time on a first-come-first-served basis.

Accounting for the brand’s tepid overall result so far this year (down 1.4% to the end of May) is the gap between the new-generation Kona and the old one. With stock currently running out for the outgoing model, and the new-generation version due to start delivery in July, the nameplate is down nearly 40 per cent year-on-year.

“It’s our third best-seller, so there’s a big gap there,” said a Hyundai spokesperson.

Stock of the brand’s halo electric vehicles - the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 - has improved.

Big things are on the horizon for Hyundai, however, with improving stock met by incoming hybrid variants of both the Kona, due before the end of 2023 and Tucson, likely due at a later date in 2024.

Like the larger Santa Fe hybrid, both will be powered by a 1.6-litre petrol four-cylinder engine with an electric motor. The models will be key for taking the fight to the overwhelmingly popular Toyota hybrid range, specifically the Corolla Cross and RAV4, both of which are attracting wait times of a year or longer.

However, Hyundai also faces stiff competition from Nissan’s hybrid e-Power range, which includes variants of the Qashqai and X-Trail, as well as newcomer plugless hybrids from GWM, including variants of the Jolion and H6.