“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” You’re likely too young to remember this famous tagline from adman David Ogilvy, but it popped into my head the first time I eased Hyundai’s new Tucson PHEV out of my driveway. Hushed silence is a quality we associate with luxury, and this 2022 Hyundai is surely quieter than that 1958 Rolls-Royce. (No ticking clock, either.)

PHEV stands for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. A PHEV has a more powerful electric motor and a larger battery pack than your normal gas-electric hybrid car, so it can travel farther, and usually faster, on electricity alone.

Underneath what looks like a gas-filler cover, a PHEV has a charging port; and tucked away with the spare tire there’s a heavy-duty electrical cable with a three-prong plug on one end and a chunky, sci-fi-looking fitting on the other. The cable connects the vehicle to a power outlet in your garage or on the side of the house, so it can be recharged with household current rather than by the gas engine alone. If we remember to plug in at home, there’s always enough juice to do the daily driving chores—to the store, school, maybe work—without ever firing up the ICE, the internal combustion engine. Currently (ahem), electricity costs a lot less than gasoline; and whatever the price, electricity is cleaner to “burn” (unless it comes from a coal-fired generating plant).

A PHEV also has a real gas-filler flap and nozzle, as well as the aforementioned ICE, so we can still set off for parts unknown with no range anxiety. So long as the ubiquity and convenience of gas stations prevail over our still-emerging electric charging grid, PHEVs make a lot of sense.

Back to Rolls-Royce for a moment: in 1958, Rollers were fabricated largely by human hands. Today, Hyundais—nearly all cars—are built mostly by precisely programmed robots that never get hangovers, never fight with their spouses and never need a nap, much less a break for lunch. Philosophically, hand-craftsmanship is admirable; functionally . . . well, a cheap, rechargeable, mass-produced basic Apple watch keeps far better time, and does far more, than any costly, manually wound and painstakingly hand-assembled Patek Philippe.

The sense of luxury conveyed by the eerie quiet of the Tucson PHEV rolling through town is reinforced by the apparently flawless way it was screwed together. The Limited cabin is appropriately comfortable and attractive, with all modern conveniences, while the new-for-2022 exterior styling is downright elegant, especially in this bottomless Deep Sea blue.

With 261 horsepower and 258 torques available from its small (1.6-liter) turbocharged ICE plus its 44.2 kilowatt electric motor, the plug-in Tucson can tow up to 2000 pounds and be surprisingly aggressive off the line, especially in Sport mode. Ours has all-wheel drive; a FWD model might chirp its front tires under a heavy foot. By about 40 MPH, the electric torque is done and thereafter the performance is more normal. Unless, that is, we count fuel efficiency as a metric: I like driving around with the computer indicating 999 miles per gallon. Hyundai says its Tucson PHEV can travel up to 32 miles on electrons only.

A transportation device so nearly perfect brings out the nitpicker in me: Since the charging port is on the right rear fender, I have to turn and back the car into the driveway so that I see the charging cable and remember to unplug it before I drive away. A minor point, but if it were on the driver’s front left fender, as is more normal, I wouldn’t have to back in.

The array of similar buttons on the center console—P(ark), D(rive), R(everse), N(eutral) plus Auto-Hold and the e-brake, can be confusing. Eventually I’d develop the muscle memory to do this automatically, but now I must study them for a moment before I can choose the right one. And why no volume knob on the radio?

That’s it for nits to pick. Size-wise, the two-row Tucson is the middle one of seven families of Hyundai SUVs, each of which is divided into subcategories: hybrid, performance, electric-only. One, the Nexo, is a fuel-cell vehicle, a hydrogen-powered, true zero-emissions vehicle. All of them are impressive (and wait till you see the new Ioniq 6 EV).

An entry-level, gas-only Tucson starts at $25,800. The Tucson Hybrid costs $29,750 and up. This one, the Tucson PHEV, starts at a suggested $35,400; ours, however, is a well-equipped Tucson Limited with all-wheel drive and an all-in MSRP of $44,640. That’s three times more than a 1958 Rolls-Royce, but only one-tenth the price of a new one. I’d bet it’s quieter.

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