Hyundai unveiled a new Tucson on Thursday with a central touchscreen of up to 17 inches whose layout closely follows the one Tesla uses, bringing that interface to a mainstream combustion and hybrid model.
Hyundai’s own image of the system shows a driving visualisation on the left of the screen, a settings menu with categories listed down its left edge, and a dock of app and climate icons along the bottom with the cabin temperature at each end.
The left-hand driving view and the bottom dock match Tesla’s arrangement, while the settings menu shares only the idea of a category list on the left, with Hyundai’s own labels.
The Tucson UI
In the image Hyundai released, the left pane of the display renders the car from behind in its lane, with surrounding vehicles drawn around it and the planned path marked in green.
The gear indicator and the speed sit in the top-left corner, above the visualisation. The settings page opens on a tab called “Quick Controls,” with tiles for door locks, mirrors and child locks and sliders for brightness and sound.
Down the left side runs a list of categories including “Lights & Signals,” “Driver Assistance,” “Driving Style,” “Climate,” “Navigation” and “Display.”
The bottom bar carries the temperature for driver and passenger at either end, with seat, defrost and fan controls and a row of app icons between them.
The software is called Pleos Connect and runs on Google’s Android Automotive OS, Hyundai said.
The resemblance has been noted since Hyundai first showed Pleos Connect in March 2025.
Where Hyundai Departs From Tesla
The Tucson keeps hardware that Tesla removed.
A slim 9.9-inch display sits above the steering wheel for speed and driving information, and Hyundai’s European release lists an available head-up display, whereas the Model 3 and Model Y put that information on the central screen.
Physical buttons below the central display give “direct access to key functions,” Hyundai said. The gear selector is a stalk on the steering column.
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included on the 2027 Tucson in the United States, although neither of Hyundai’s October 1 global releases mentions them.
Hyundai also added its own gestures, including three-finger controls on the touchscreen.
The separate driver display may not be on every model, as Hyundai has said it will fit one “wherever it can afford to do so while meeting the desired price point,” according to Jalopnik.
Hyundai had signalled that choice before the software was shown.
“People get stressed, annoyed and steamed when they want to control something in a pinch but are unable to do so,” Ha Hak-soo, VP of Hyundai Design North America, told Korea JoongAng Daily in November 2024, citing focus-group testing.
Pleos Connect also includes an app market and a voice assistant called Gleo AI, which Hyundai said can understand context and use live internet data.
The Tucson is the first model in the United States to get Pleos Connect.
“Pleos Connect represents a fundamental shift in how customers experience their vehicles over time,” said Eric Wood, Senior VP of Product Experience at 42dot, Hyundai’s software unit.
Pleos Connect made its debut this year on the Grandeur sedan in Korea, and Hyundai said when it introduced the software in March 2025 that it aims to fit it to more than 20 million vehicles across its brands by 2030.
The Tucson will be offered with a 12.9-inch or a 17-inch central display.
It goes on sale in Korea later this year and in North America, Europe and other markets in 2027, Hyundai said.
The Tesla Connection
Hyundai has measured itself against Tesla in software before.
Park Min-woo, President of Hyundai’s Advanced Vehicle Platform Division, said in September that Hyundai “can overtake what our rivals have built in five years” in self-driving data.
Park worked on Tesla’s Autopilot system and was later a VP at Nvidia before Hyundai hired him in January.
