Racy saloon shows Hyundai’s avant garde flair
◆ The provocatively styled electric Ioniq 6 is enjoyable to look at and drive, writes Frederic Manby
More electrifying headlines as major and minor players revise electric car prices to attract the private buyers they need to meet sales and government targets. Even the World Big Two, Tesla and BYD, are feeling the cold wind of resistance in the US and China.
Nissan UK’S chief says he has to cut costs of their electric cars by 30 per cent to compete with the Chinese. Vauxhall and Mazda this week brought prices below £30,000 for entry models but most electric cars are still way too expensive for the private buyer as a cash purchase. The lure of easy (sic) payments made just about any of them reasonably affordable in the short term as long as the wages keep coming in. You need cheap home-charging to reap the mileage economies.
Then there’s Koreans Kia and its parent company Hyundai moving silkily upmarket. K-cheap has gone, prices went up. Hyundai is now shedding some traditional dealers in favour of premium showrooms to reflect its assumed status. Roughly a third of remaining sites will be “encouraged to enhance their operations”. Ashley Andrew, Hyundai Motor UK president, explains: “Hyundai has transformed rapidly to a desirable electrified vehicle brand in a remarkably short space of time.” He notes that the Ioniq 5 and 6 (both with triple World Car of the Year awards) “has positioned Hyundai at the cutting-edge of the electric vehicle market.” There is nothing new about this drive upmarket. It brings in more money from you.
Yet you may not want electric. Sales to private buyers have faltered. There are huge imbalances between the cost of public re-charging and doing it at home, around ten times more at the worst. Many can’t have a home charger due to by-laws. Using a public charger can make mileage more expensive than using a petrol hybrid or diesel car.
This is not to say that electric driving is not for the family. I have yet to drive an EV I don’t like because they all have the same silent, smooth instant response when you press the pedal: plus no roadside pollution.
The differences are in battery range, charging speeds and power. The most important factor to most of us is the range, how far you can expect to get before the need to re-charge. Most owners will manage these expectations.
That leaves the power thing. The Germans, led as usual by Porsche, have to promote power as well as a luxury or sporting ambience to support their
higher prices. My EV is faster than your EV? Who cares how quickly an electric Porsche laps the Nurburgring any more.
Progress or is it just Porsche posing, I ask myself.
The others, the wannabe rivals, have caught up with the 0-60 palaver we are obsessed with in the Camshaft Arms and are doing nicely with interiors too.
Yes, we’ve got there, to the racy brushed silver, slippery saloon seen here. It is the Ioniq 6, made by Hyundai in Korea and winner of the 2023 World Car of the Year, World Electric Vehicle and World Car Design titles. It is rated at 338 miles on a full battery and can be recharged very quickly indeed. It has a 77.4kwh battery with 225bhp for the rear wheel drive model and 321bhp with all-wheeldrive. Prices start at £47,040 and £50,540 respectively. They share technology with the Kia EV6 and the Ioniq 5 hatchback – both with striking shapes – and the Genesis GV60 from the group’s faltering upmarket brand. Kia is doing best on sales this year in the UK.
The Ioniq 6 shows the brand’s avant garde flair. The lady in the woodyard office, outside which I’d parked, said it looked like a space ship. I’m not sure it looks like a 21st century space craft but the Ioniq 6 is provocatively styled. From the low nose it rises in a shallow arc before sloping back into the tail, over a see-through lip, to the band of red pixel lights. It has a conventional boot with an underfloor compartment, folding rear seats, and then below the bonnet a large storage area and side net. There is a choice of storage areas in the tastefully appointed cabin, dominated by an information binnacle which stretches across two-thirds of the fascia.
The flat floor allows a long tray under what would be the gearbox housing for a car with an engine. A simple twist stalk on the steering column is your motion selector. There are long door bins and above them ergonomic full-length channels for pulling the doors closed at any angle.
I enjoyed looking at and driving the Ioniq. The controls are easy, with functions also accessed accurately by voice request. Hyundai’s rear side view on the dashboard when indicating makes turning safer.
Running economy was from 3.4 to 4 miles per kilowatt hour. Its range depleted faster than forecast. For example an undemanding journey of 74 miles took 87 miles off the predicted range. An Osprey battery re-charge at 79p per kwh meant it was averaging the equivalent of 30mpg for a petrol car. On my standard domestic tariff that would be 90mpg. On a special domestic EV rate it could be 300mpg.
From the low nose it rises in a shallow arc before sloping back into the tail