At first blush, one is likely to be tempted to dismiss the Hyundai CRATER Idea debuting at this 12 months’s Los Angeles Auto Present as little greater than a fantasy. That may be a mistake, GearJunkie has discovered.
Whereas there are some apparent present automotive novelties, just like the flashlights constructed into CRATER’s sideview mirrors, senior Hyundai officers confided they want to dramatically prolong the model’s off-road capabilities.
At an in any other case somnambulant 2025 Los Angeles Auto Present, Hyundai delivered loads of much-needed pleasure on Thursday, notably with the debut of the CRATER Idea. It has all the trimmings of a traditional present automotive, an over-the-top design with some wild and wide-eyed options, just like the bottle opener constructed into considered one of its restoration hooks.
However a more in-depth inspection ought to give encouragement to these hoping CRATER will dwell on previous this 12 months’s auto present season. One trace is the XRT badge embossed into the best nook of CRATER’s tailgate. That’s the designation Hyundai has been utilizing for extra rugged variations of its present mannequin lineup, such because the Ioniq 5 XRT, Santa Cruz XRT, and Santa Fe XRT.
Hyundai Will get Adventurous
“We’re very critical” about going nicely past the capabilities of even the XRT Professional trim launched with the 2026 Palisade SUV, Randy Parker, president and CEO of Hyundai North America, instructed GearJunkie in an unique interview. “The plan is to undoubtedly improve our off-road capabilities and be extra adventurous … over the subsequent couple years,” Parker defined.
“This isn’t only a idea automotive,” added SangYup Lee, govt vice chairman and head of world design at Hyundai Motor Co. “It may very simply be became a manufacturing automotive.”
Rugged New Design
Hyundai describes the CRATER Idea’s exterior design language as “The Artwork of Metal.” That matches the rugged look of the prototype, beginning with the in depth underbody cladding designed to guard CRATER from the roughest obstacles it would face out on the path. That extends to crucial parts of the physique and rocker panels, mentioned Lee, which is painted in a green-gold matte paint “drawing inspiration” from the California coast.
He famous that his design staff has been working with the steelmaking arm of the Hyundai conglomerate to provide you with alloys which might be each rugged and in a position to be fashioned into interesting shapes.
Roughly the scale of in the present day’s compact Tucson, CRATER has an imposing presence, enhanced by its sharp creases and 18-inch wheels — meant to appear like the crater left after an asteroid affect, the corporate defined. They’re shod in 33-inch all-terrain tires.
A distinctively styled roof rack was designed as a mounting level for auxiliary lights, further storage, and different equipment.
Among the many extra uncommon options: a pair of “limb risers,” cables stretching from hood to roof, Hyundai famous, to offer “added safety from low-hanging branches on slender and overgrown trails.” Then there are these flashlights constructed into the sideview mirrors. They are often eliminated, as can the built-in cameras to file “breathtaking views and even file thrilling adventures,” Hyundai famous in a information launch.
CRATER Inside Design
CRATER’s cabin is a hybrid design emphasizing each ruggedness and know-how. The squared-off steering wheel has devoted buttons that enable a motorist to right away choose from Snow, Sand, Mud, Auto, and XRT drive modes, every adjusting a wide range of car features, together with drivetrain, braking, and shifts.
The instrument panel itself is completed in a perforated materials designed to let comfortable ambient lighting cross by. Above the IP, a full-width head-up show may serve up a wide range of simultaneous projections, together with car knowledge, augmented-reality navigation, and extra. The philosophy behind CRATER’s know-how is BYOD. “Carry Your Personal Machine,” the automaker mentioned, permitting a motorist to create “a versatile and customizable digital expertise that adapts to varied conditions and particular person person preferences.”
What Hyundai Isn’t Speaking About — But
For all the main points Hyundai provided up throughout the CRATER idea’s L.A. debut, the automaker was decidedly mum on one key level: what we might discover have been we in a position to raise open the hood. The excellent news for Hyundai is that it has a wide range of choices in its toolbox, from inside combustion engines to all-electric, with a wide range of totally different hybrid alternate options, as nicely.
It’s additionally working up range-extender know-how the place the wheels are pushed solely by electrical motors — however an ICE system serves as a generator, offering a seamless circulate of present as soon as the battery pack is drained.
We do know that CRATER has some helpful off-road methods, together with not solely these selectable driver modes however downhill brake management — a kind of low-speed cruise management — and trailer brake management. It additionally has a built-in compass and altimeter, and each a hearth extinguisher and a first-aid equipment.
Enjoying within the Sand Field
Requested whether or not the feedback made by Parker and Lee needs to be dismissed as hyperbole, a well-placed Hyundai insider, asking for anonymity, famous what’s occurred to the outdated Genesis design studio at Hyundai’s California product growth middle.
It’s been reworked into one thing of an off-roader’s fantasyland dubbed “The Sand Field,” and is supposed to encourage growth of ever extra rugged merchandise that will put on the XRT and XRT Professional badges within the coming years.
Since Hyundai first launched a number of CRATER Idea renderings earlier this week, there’s been hypothesis on how far it would go. Would it not, for instance, dare to problem off-road icons just like the Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco? Design chief Lee wouldn’t rule that risk out, although CRATER, because the idea stands, doesn’t provide no less than one key function Wrangler and Bronco patrons would seemingly anticipate: detachable doorways and glass.
That wouldn’t be out of the realm for a manufacturing design, mentioned Lee, although he additionally pressured that, in manufacturing, Hyundai may goal “many several types of outside actions.”
Neither of the executives would offer onerous timing for a manufacturing car on par with the Hyundai CRATER Idea — however they made it clear that the automaker is taking the idea fairly significantly and gained’t shunt it apart as soon as this auto present season wraps up.
