Summary
- The Ioniq 2’s expected price is $34,000.
- The EV might resemble Kia’s EV2.
- The Ioniq 2’s interior should be car-like, not tablet-like.
Recently, a fresh EV release from Hyundai has been spotted in the wild, although conservatively clad, and internet car-sleuths have deduced that it’s exactly what many fans were hoping for — the Ioniq 2, which is set to come to market in September. A few of Pocket-lint’s sister sites have already reported on that fact, but we’re here to tell you exactly what it should come to market with or without, and exactly how it should be delivered to customers.
The price tag is expected to be around $34,000 USD, which comes out to just around 30,000 Euros. While that number is on the lower end of the EV spectrum, it’s a fairly decent chunk of change when stacked up with its ICE counterparts here stateside.
So, what should buyers expect from Hyundai’s new compact EV SUV?
6
It should feel like its Kia cousin
The body lines are about the only secret this car is keeping
For those unaware of the strings that connect Kia and Hyundai at the hip, they’re essentially the same company producing cars that look slightly different. When the Kia EV2 concept was announced, many figured that Hyundai’s rendition would soon follow, and here we are. The Ioniq 2 was captured driving on the road by CarSpy Media, and even with the dimensions wrapped underneath some black cloth, it’s easy to tell that the boxy configuration and size are making their way over from the EV2.
Kia falls under the ownership of the Hyundai Motor Group, along with Genesis. Hyundai became the majority shareholder of Kia in 1998, after the company filed for bankruptcy in 1997. Oh, how far we’ve come, huh?
But what do I mean by “feel like?” In order to know for yourself, you’d have to drive a new Kia, but let me try and break it down. The thing that I really love about Kia (and Hyundai, for that matter) is that while they are one of numerous companies trying to give the illusion of premium materials and products and budget-friendly prices, they’re also one of the few companies that do it well.
Here’s a test — go sit in someone’s new Kia or mid-trim and up Hyundai, and imagine what it probably costs them in your head, then ask the figure. I’ll bet you that it will be lower than what you pictured. And that’s the same effect that the Ioniq 2 needs to have first and foremost. It needs to feel like it should cost more than the $34,000 that it will off the lot.
5
Be a car instead of a mobile tablet
An interior can make or break any new release
My biggest problem with most EV interiors is that they look like the designers said “alright then, we’ve got a big screen,” and just stopped creating a cohesive aesthetic from there. However, Hyundai has always impressed consumers with their own EV interiors in the sense that they still feel car-like as opposed to being plopped down in front of a great, big iPad. The Ioniq 5 interior is one of the nicer places to be on any road, and if they can capture that same magic in the Ioniq 2, it should be a more than adequate place to spend your morning commute in.
The spy footage offered a glimpse at what the interior of the car might look like (invest in some CPL filters, folks), but from the limited pieces we could see, there doesn’t appear to be a giant square jutting upwards out of the dash, which is a marked improvement over some competitors in the space like Tesla, which seem to feature increasingly bigger screens.
4
Keep the advertised price once tax credits end
Don’t fall victim to the same fate as Slate
When the Slate truck was announced as the next biggest and brightest thing in budget EV technology, the world ooh’d and ahh’d at its $20,000 price tag. Within the fine print, though, was that said price tag contained the $7,500 tax credit in the US. With that set to disappear in September, the Slate truck’s price now hovers dangerously close to the $30,000 mark, and will probably surpass that in some specs and aftermarket lots after markups.
Hyundai can’t afford the same thing to happen with the Ioniq 2, especially if it’s targeting a September launch date. It doesn’t take a mathematician to note that September coincides with the end of tax credits for U.S. buyers, and if the price jumps closer to the $40,000 range, many buyers will decide that they’re better off buying the Ioniq 5 instead, and the Ioniq 2 will suffer a short, uneventful production run that many new EVs are set to undergo in the coming months.
3
Competitive native infotainment software
With more players coming to the space, CarPlay isn’t the only option anymore
One of the things I’m looking forward to most this year is where the next app-battleground will take place — inside our cars. With CarPlay Ultra receiving pushback from several large manufacturers around the globe, companies like Harman and others who already have their foot in the door of automotive tech are looking to expand their offerings into full infotainment suites as opposed to the gadgets they’re already known for.
Hyundai’s Blue Link system is a solid one, but with a little fine-tuning and enhanced connectivity to an outside app store, it could reach another tier as we see different manufacturers favor their own brand identity over the cookie-cutter look that more contemporary options like CarPlay or Android Auto provide. Eventually, manufacturers are going to want their cabins to look and feel like theirs again, and it’s coming sooner rather than later. Hyundai may want to be ahead of the curve, starting with the Ioniq line.
2
No subscription services, please
Nobody wants to pay any more than the car’s price
My current biggest automotive pet peeve is when manufacturers tack on subscription services in addition to the price of the car after the actual purchase. For instance, Tesla charges its customers extra to use all but one feature of its famed infotainment connectivity system. What good is purchasing a car when you have to pay extra to even turn the features on? Hyundai isn’t completely innocent of this, either.
Part of Blue Link’s system is all the remote features that come with the car when you first purchase it — auto-start, remote lock/unlock, etc. — and now, Hyundai says it will charge a subscription fee after a certain amount of ownership time to continue these remote services in the future. Why? Was the $30-plus grand I already gave you not enough for you to resist the urge to hit the off switch in the cloud? It drives me nuts, in case you couldn’t tell, and if Hyundai is smart, the Ioniq 2 will come with as many features as the buyer wants to pay for already baked into the platform, or they’ll offer one-time fees after the fact to activate the feature that they thought they could live without, but were wrong in the end.
1
Honorable mention: a rear windscreen wiper
Did they forget the first time around?
Pocket-lint Editor-in-Chief Patrick O’Rourke, who drives an Ioniq 5, would never forgive me if I didn’t mention this one, too. For the love of all things holy, the Ioniq 2 needs to have a rear windscreen wiper. Precipitation does not stop when one drives a Hyundai, and dust and snow don’t cease to accumulate.
This is akin to someone breaking into my house and stealing nothing but my batteries or just charging cords. It’s as inconvenient and day-ruining as getting your favorite shirt caught on a door handle, as minutely infuriating as getting the USB plug right on the third try, as momentarily rage-inducing as the fifth buffering attempt by your favorite streaming service, and as infinitely embarrassing as realizing you wore your shirt inside out all day. Sometimes, it’s the little things that matter, and this one does.
