If you're looking for a practical pickup truck, the fact is that towing and payload capacity are only so important. A survey conducted by Strategic Vision in 2019 found that 75% of truck owners only use their truck for towing duty once a year, or less, and more than a third of drivers never even use the truck bed. So, unless you're specifically looking for a work truck, the truth of the matter is that safety ratings, reliability, and a fair price are considerably more important to the typical truck driver than sheer towing and hauling specs.With that in mind, we're out to cover the most practical pickup on the market today, based on the factors that matter most to most drivers, and this leads us right to the 2026 Hyundai Santa Cruz.Sources used in writing this article include J.D. Power, the IIHS, the NHTSA, RepairPal, CarEdge, and CarComplaints. The claim that the Hyundai Santa Cruz is the most practical is based on research that most people never use a truck for hauling or towing. If you are one of the small group that tow and haul on a regular basis, the Santa Cruz is not the right choice. The 2026 Hyundai Santa Cruz Is The Most Practical Pickup Available Today HyundaiWe're looking at three key factors in determining the most practical pickup on the market today.Price: We're looking for something that can tow at least a couple of tons for under $40,000 Reliability: We're limiting our search to trucks with J.D. Power ratings above 80/100 Safety: We want our winner to hold a Top Safety Pick award with the IIHS These three factors see the 2024 Santa Cruz taking the lead as the most practical new truck available. Here's what we mean: The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Tows 5,000 Pounds For $38,460 HyundaiIf you just want a daily driver, the front-wheel drive Santa Cruz SE starts out at just $29,500, and it can pull 3,500 lbs. If you need a little more pulling power, the all-wheel drive XRT model starts at $41,500 and packs a turbocharged version of the truck's 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine, pulling 5,000 lbs. The 2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz Holds An 88/100 Quality & Reliability Rating With an 88/100 rating for the facelifted 2025 model, the Hyundai Santa Cruz retains its streak of excellent quality and reliability scores with J.D. Power, year after year, ever since the pickup's initial release for the 2022 model year.The Ford Maverick earned an 85/100 quality & reliability rating for 2024, while the Honda Ridgeline scored 84/100. Both have very good scores, but the Santa Cruz is the clear leader for reliable unibody trucks, as far as J.D. Power is concerned. The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Holds A Top Safety Pick Award With The IIHS The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz is one of only two small pickups to earn a Top Safety Pick award for 2024, alongside the Toyota Tacoma.These crash test results are good, but not perfect. Let's go a little more in-depth here: The truck earned a perfect score in every category for small overlap front impact. Rear passenger restraints and dummy kinematics earned a Marginal rating in the moderate overlap front test, while rear passenger head/neck injury measures earned an Acceptable. The side test earned Acceptable ratings for structure and safety cage, for rear passenger pelvis injury measures, and for torso and pelvis driver injury measures. The front crash prevention system avoided all 37 mph multiple-vehicle collisions except for the motorcycle off-center test, and reduced speed by a minimum of 26 mph in all 43 mph tests. The front crash prevention system avoided passenger collision at 25 mph, and, in the 37 mph tests, reduced speed by at least 33 mph before impact. Recalls And Repairs For The Hyundai Santa CruzHyundaiObviously, no truck is perfect. The Santa Cruz is remarkably safe and reliable, but it's not without its share of notes from the NHTSA. The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Was Recalled For Power Steering Failure A June 2024 recall saw the 2024 Santa Cruz and Tucson being called back into the shop for issues pertaining to power steering loss. The good news is that this only affected 795 units in total. You'll want to check your VIN, of course, but the number of affected models, owing to problems with the steering power pack, is very low.The truck has only generated five complaints with the NHTSA, with the most worrying being that two drivers have reported airbag failure after a collision.Ian Wright/CarBuzz/Valnet The Santa Cruz Is Cheap To Maintain Note that the maintenance figures listed here, courtesy of RepairPal for annual maintenance costs and CarEdge for the ten-year estimate, are based on the Hyundai brand at large, not the Santa Cruz specifically. Hyundai's unibody pickup has only been around for four model years, so it hasn't generated enough repair data to get a precise model-specific estimate.The Santa Cruz has not generated any major issues with CarComplaints, but 2022 Santa Cruz owners have experienced a couple of issues worth considering if you're buying used: A driver reports that their engine quit at just 12,000 miles. One driver reports that their truck won't accelerate over 20 mph after putting 2,200 miles on the odometer. What If You Don't Want To Drive A Small Unibody Pickup? Toyota There are plenty of reasons to recommend the Hyundai Santa Cruz, but the towing capacity taps out at two and a half tons, and there's no all-electric option. So what would the most practical pickup be for someone who needs something a little bigger, or someone who's looking for an EV? The Most Practical Full-Size Pickup: The 2024 Toyota Tundra Toyota The Toyota Tundra is the only full-size non-electric pickup with an IIHS Top Safety Pick + safety award for 2025. It holds an impressive 83 /100 quality & reliability rating with J.D. Power, and it starts at $41,260, towing up to 8,300 lbs in its base 348-hp twin-turbo six-cylinder configuration. RepairPal estimates an annual maintenance cost of just $606, with the only common repair to rack up a thousand-dollar bill being a new airbag control module, at up to $1,034. The Tundra isn't as endlessly customizable as a Ford F-150, a Sierra, or a Silverado, but it simply makes the most sense if you're looking at price, safety, and reliability. The Most Practical Electric Pickup: The Rivian R1T RivianThe 2025 Rivian R1T also boasts a Top Safety Pick+ award from the IIHS. The truck's J.D. Power Quality & Reliability rating is a not-great 69/100 for 2025, owing in large part to the expensive repairs that come with owning a full-sized electric.Given the R1T's price, starting at a whopping $69,900 for the base 533-hp model that can tow 11,000 lbs, there's an argument to be made for the 2024 F-150 Lightning, starting at a relatively reasonable $54,995, but the Lightning has not yet been rated by the IIHS or by J.D. Power. The electric truck segment is still developing, so the R1T, as the safest truck on the market, effectively wins "most practical" by default. But check back in a year or two once it has a little more competition.