Hyundai Motor Co on Thursday launched its first electric sedan, the Ioniq 6, which the South Korean carmaker is betting will help it gain a larger share of the electric vehicle (EV) market dominated by Tesla Inc. The Ioniq 6 is one of more than 31 electric models that Hyundai Motor Group – including Hyundai Motor, its sister company Kia Corp and premium brand Genesis – plans to launch by 2030 to secure a projected 12% share of the global electric car market.
The Hyundai sedan will expand its EV lineup beyond its current crossovers and SUVs to take on Tesla in the popular category. Excluding China, the world’s largest car market, Hyundai and Kia together accounted for 13.5% of electric car deliveries worldwide between January and May this year, according to industry tracker SNE Research. It was second only to Tesla, which had a 22% share in the same period.
The Ioniq 6 will have a range of about 610 kilometers (380 miles), about 30% more than the Ioniq 5 crossover, Hyundai said.” We use the same (battery) cell chemistry, but … we maximized the amount of batteries in each pack, greatly increasing the energy density,” said Kim Yong Wha, executive vice president of Hyundai.
•The automaker did not disclose the price of the Ioniq 6.
•It will be available in two battery pack variants – 53 kilowatt-hours (kWh) and 77.4 kWh
• will go into production at the Asan plant in South Korea later this year, Hyundai said.
•The launch schedule will be announced later.
Hyundai usually sources batteries from LG Energy Solution Ltd and SK On SK Innovation, and Kia recently adopted Chinese CATL batteries for its cars sold in South Korea, but the automaker did not disclose the source for the Ioniq 6 cars. The launch comes after Hyundai announced plans to build dedicated EV plants at home and in the United States, where the Ioniq 5 and Kia’s EV 6 SUV have combined to become the second best-selling electric car behind Tesla and ahead of Ford Motor Co’s Mustang Mach. “Both cars address the two major flaws of previous EVs in the U.S. market: lack of style and range,” Ivan Drury, Edmunds senior manager, said of the Ioniq 5 and EV 6.
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