2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy Black Ink Priced for Australia: $92,400 Hybrid Flagship, In Dealers This Month

Image credit: Hyundai Australia

If you are cross-shopping a seven or eight seat family SUV around the $90,000 mark this month, Hyundai has just given you one more thing to look at. The blacked-out Palisade Calligraphy Black Ink is back in the local lineup on the new second-generation body, priced from $92,400 before on-road costs, and it is a hybrid only. No diesel, no V6, no choice. Buyers who want the captain-chair second row instead of an eight-seat bench pay $1,000 more. For the punter comparing a Kluger Grande Hybrid, a Sorento GT-Line Hybrid or a Mazda CX-80 GT, the Black Ink is Hyundai's flagship pitch, and this article is a plain-English look at what you get, what you pay and where it sits against the rest of our large-SUV shortlist on CarSorted.

The new Palisade landed here late in 2025 with a longer wheelbase, more boot, a local suspension tune and Hyundai's first turbo-petrol hybrid drivetrain in this size of car. The Black Ink is not a mechanical change on top of that, it is a trim play sitting a whisker above the standard Calligraphy. The car underneath is the same hybrid AWD, the sales story is that Hyundai now has a proper visual range-topper again to sit against the Toyota Grande, the Sorento GT-Line and the CX-80 GT Azami.

Pricing

A quick sanity check on those numbers. The Black Ink walk over the standard Calligraphy is $2,572 for the eight-seat car. Historically the Black Ink premium on the previous diesel Palisade was about the same money, so Hyundai has held the line on the mark-up despite the switch to the more expensive hybrid drivetrain. The seven-seat premium is a flat $1,000, unchanged from the rest of the Palisade range.

There is no petrol-only or diesel Black Ink for the second-generation car in Australia. The new-shape Palisade is hybrid-only across every grade here, which is a genuine break with the outgoing model where a 3.8L V6 petrol and a 2.2L turbo-diesel handled almost every sale. That matters for buyers who used to lean on the diesel for towing or for country driving, and we cover the trade-off further down.

Powertrain and Running Costs

6.8 L/100km on the combined cycle is a big deal for a car this size. For context, the previous 2.2L diesel Palisade drank 7.3 L/100km and the 3.8L V6 sat at 10.7 L/100km on the same test. That is a real-world 25 to 40 per cent gain in showroom fuel numbers, on cheaper 91 unleaded rather than diesel. Run the maths on 15,000 kilometres a year at $1.85 a litre and the hybrid saves roughly $1,110 a year versus the old V6 and about $250 a year against the old diesel. Two years of city commuting will pay back the walk from Calligraphy to Black Ink on fuel alone if you had already committed to the hybrid.

The catch is towing. Hyundai is not quoting anything extraordinary on the hybrid's braked tow rating relative to the outgoing diesel, and turbo-petrol hybrids as a class are more sensitive to steep, hot, high-load towing work than a large diesel. If you tow a caravan more than a handful of weekends a year, drive to your Hyundai dealer and get the tow figure in writing for your exact spec before signing.

What the Black Ink Kit Actually Buys You

Everything is mechanical on the Palisade Calligraphy underneath. The Black Ink treatment lays a dark theme over the top: gloss black on the grille, window surrounds, beltline, mirror caps, lower bumpers, roof rails, badges and Hyundai emblems, gloss black 21-inch alloys, and just the two paint choices, Abyss Black or Creamy White, to keep the visual theme consistent. Inside there is black Nappa leather trim with metallic black finishes, and Black Ink-specific detail on the door sills.

Standard tech and comfort carries across from the regular Calligraphy: a 12.3-inch central touchscreen with satellite navigation, a 12.3-inch digital driver display, a 14-speaker premium sound system, power-adjustable front seats and a Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) outlet that can power camping gear or a coffee machine off the hybrid battery. If you have shopped an Ioniq 5 or Ioniq 9 you know the V2L trick already. In a school-run large SUV it turns into a genuinely useful holiday feature the Kluger and Sorento do not match.

Where does the Black Ink lose to lesser Palisades? Nowhere on kit. It adds to the Calligraphy rather than swapping content out. Where does it lose to itself? The 21-inch wheels ride firmer than the smaller alloys on the Elite, and dark paint on a car this big is punishing to keep clean. Both are fair trade-offs for a look this deliberate.

Safety

The second-generation Palisade is not yet rated by ANCAP. The previous car's five-star result does not carry across to the new architecture. If you want a fresh five-star family SUV, the Mazda CX-80 currently holds one, and the Toyota Kluger and Kia Sorento both hold five-star results from earlier protocols. That is a real point against the Palisade until a fresh assessment lands.

Every Palisade including the Black Ink carries Hyundai SmartSense as standard, which covers autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise, lane-following, blind-spot and rear cross-traffic alert with braking, driver attention monitoring and a full 360-degree camera on the Calligraphy grades. All of that hardware exists, it is the assessment badge on the wall that is currently missing.

How It Compares on CarSorted

Stacked against our own directory, here is where the Black Ink sits on RRP against the natural cross-shop this month. All figures before on-road costs, all hybrid AWD unless noted.

Read that table honestly and the Palisade Black Ink is the most powerful non-plug-in in the set and the most expensive petrol hybrid, but it is not the sharpest fuel number. The Kluger and Sorento both post lower claimed L/100km on smaller hybrid drivetrains. The CX-80 P50e is a plug-in hybrid and its 2.1 L/100km headline is only realistic if you plug in every night and stay short. If you cannot plug in, the Palisade is the closer choice.

The Kluger Grande is $7,265 cheaper than the Black Ink and 61kW down on power. The Sorento GT-Line Hybrid is $17,860 cheaper and 76kW down. That is a big gap. If you can walk away from Hyundai badge loyalty and the 5,065mm footprint, the Sorento is the most rational buy on that shortlist. If you want the biggest cabin, the strongest hybrid drivetrain and the most theatrical look, the Black Ink is doing something the Sorento is not.

Warranty and Servicing

Hyundai backs the Palisade with a five-year unlimited-kilometre warranty and eight years or 160,000km on the hybrid battery, the same coverage as the rest of the Palisade range. That is not class-leading. Kia Sorento owners get seven years and MG owners on a hybrid can push 10 years. Hyundai counters with iCare capped-price servicing, roadside assistance for the length of the service plan, and a stronger dealer footprint than most of the Chinese competitors in this bracket. Buyers who intend to keep the car past 100,000km should read our warranty comparison before signing, because that five-year cap is where Hyundai loses a real point on paper.

The Luxury Car Tax Angle

This one is worth paying attention to. The Palisade Calligraphy Hybrid drivetrain is not a fuel-efficient car under the ATO's Luxury Car Tax test, which needs a combined figure at or below 3.5 L/100km, so it uses the lower $80,809 threshold, not the $91,661 EV-and-PHEV-friendly one. On a $92,400 sticker that leaves roughly $11,591 above the threshold, which at a 33 per cent LCT rate on the excess adds up to about $3,470 in LCT before you have paid on-roads. On the seven-seat Black Ink at $93,400 the LCT slug climbs by another $330. Our full 2026-27 LCT threshold explainer walks through the maths for every big family SUV on the shortlist.

The buyer takeaway is simple. LCT is already baked into the Hyundai list price you see, but if you are thinking of a novated lease the FBT-exemption pathway is closed on the Palisade Hybrid because it is neither a battery-electric nor a plug-in hybrid. If FBT-free family SUV shopping matters to you, look at a PHEV like the Sorento GT-Line PHEV or a plug-in Mazda CX-80 instead.

Our CarSorted Angle

The Palisade has been on a run this year. Hyundai reports a 38.1 per cent lift in Palisade sales in the first half of 2026, the biggest gain across the Hyundai model range, and the new hybrid drivetrain is the obvious reason. Chuck in a blacked-out flagship at a $2,572 premium over the standard Calligraphy and Hyundai is essentially printing extra margin off the trend. This is a trim exercise, not a mechanical exercise. That is fine. It is also why the value question in this article is a bit different from a normal launch story.

Here is the CarSorted read for a buyer sitting in the showroom this month. If you have already talked yourself into a Palisade Calligraphy Hybrid, the walk to the Black Ink is roughly what a decent set of aftermarket alloys and a wrap would cost you, and it comes with factory warranty and no re-sale risk. Take it. If you are cross-shopping brands and price is doing any of the deciding, the Kia Sorento GT-Line Hybrid AWD at $74,540 is the same platform philosophy for $17,860 less, with a longer factory warranty and a better ANCAP position. Stack them on our Hyundai Palisade vs Kia Sorento comparison page and read the seven-year warranty column carefully before you sign the Hyundai order form. Or drop into the CarSorted large-SUV directory and filter by seven seats, hybrid and AWD.

What This Means for Buyers

Three buyer types where the Black Ink is the easy pick. One, existing Palisade Calligraphy owners upgrading like-for-like who want a visual step over the neighbour who owns the standard car. Two, buyers who have narrowed their shortlist to the Hyundai and simply want the range-topping trim in a family SUV that will still work as a business car three years from now. Three, city and suburban buyers who value the 6.8 L/100km hybrid economy over the old diesel's tow rating.

Three buyer types who should walk past. One, heavy tow buyers whose weekend hitches on a 3-tonne caravan for interstate holidays, because the older 2.2L diesel had a specific case for that use and Hyundai has not replaced it. Two, novated-lease buyers chasing the FBT exemption, because a petrol hybrid does not qualify. Three, badge-agnostic families with a firm $80,000 ceiling, because the Toyota Kluger Grande Hybrid AWD at $85,135 and the Kia Sorento GT-Line Hybrid AWD at $74,540 both do 90 per cent of the school-run job for meaningfully less.

More reading: Best Hybrid Cars 2026 | Chery Tiggo 9 vs Sorento vs Kluger | 2026-27 LCT thresholds