LA Auto Show - Hyundai Ionic 6
Hyundai showed their new Ionic 6 in North American spec this year’s Los Angeles auto show.
Built on Hyundai/Kia’s Electric Global Modular Platform (EGM-P) that has previously served as the basis for the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and the Genesis GV60. This is a ‘skateboard’ chassis developed exclusively for Hyundai/Kia’s latest electric models. EGM-P is made up of a low and wide electric battery pack with subframes front and rear supporting the independent suspension as well as either a rear or a front and rear drive motor.
Additionally EGM-P supports 800V DC fast charging that allows charging from 10 to 80% in a mere 18 minutes. Normal level 2 charging will do the same task in just under an hour on the small battery equipped and about an hour and a quarter with the big battery pack.
At the LA show, Hyundai gave specifics on the version of this sedan that we’ll be getting. Specifically, there will be 3 powertrain combos on offer. A small battery (53kWh), rear-drive option will be the entry model. This model will also be the slowest with 149hp and 258 lb-ft of torque.
A large battery (77.4kWh), rear-driver will sit in the middle. The extra battery capacity will allow 225hp but the same 258 lb-ft.
Rounding out the options will be the same big-battery, but with all-wheel drive. That will be spritely with a total output of 320hp and 446 lb-ft. This option will almost certainly be what UOwCars will see most when they start being sold in the mountain west. The big battery, AWD model will be genuinely fast. 0-60mph will be under 5 seconds. The rear-drive models will be slower, but still in line with gas-powered mid-sized sedans.
Additionally, the Ioniq 6 is one of the most aerodynamic cars on the road. Coefficient of drag will be a low-low 0.22. This allows the Ioniq 6 with the large battery and one motor to have a estimated range of 340 miles (compare to the similarly spec-ed but less slippery Ioniq 5’s 303 miles). The dual motor, large battery drops the range 310.
Taking the specifications of the Ioniq 6’s maximum range variant, we used the tools at A Better Roadtrip Planner to figure out how long it would take to cross the middle of the US from Denver to St. Louis to estimate how usable this car would be for travel. This is a long and relatively flat area made up of rural highways. This route is exclusively interstate, which helps offset the rural areas with some charging infrastructure investment. This should give decent route to use to compare electrics over time while having the infrastructure to reward the latest charging capability models.
For instance, there are enough 350kW chargers along the I-70 corridor to provide often allow the DC fast charging Hyundai to flex it’s fast 10-80% charge time. This means that the entire cross-country trip breaks nicely into 1.5-2 hour drive intervals with about 15 minutes of charging between each leg.
UOwCars Standardized Road Trip Preview
UOwCars Standardized Road Trip (Denver to St Louis)
UOwCars Standardized Road Trip Charge Detail
For a total 14.5 hour road trip, expect 6 charging stops with a total downtime of 1.5 hours. This shows that appropriate charging infrastructure and cars, like what Hyundai has developed, with high wattage charging is very near being on par with gas-powered cars, if you aren’t the sort of masochist who wants to spend many hundreds of miles at a stretch behind the wheel, you could be very happy taking long trips in this car.
The Hyundai group products are not the electrics where you need to plan hour+ breaks, often, to make it across the country. Nice.
We can’t wait to get some time behind the wheel of Hyundai’s latest to see how it really performs. It really looks like it could be a car that could easily replace a mass-market gas car.