Hyundai lets slip pricing for new Ioniq electric vehicle models

The Hyundai Ioniq hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicle range has been expected to be one of the watershed moments for the Australian EV market, mostly because of the expectations that the pure electric version would break the $50,000 barrier and still provide an acceptable driving range.

It turns out that is exactly the case. The full battery electric vehicle (BEV) version will come in at $45,000, with a range of 280km.

Hyundai have even recently been showing the vehicle at various electric vehicle events – but have been rather coy as to its pricing or specifications. (Or, for that matter: an exact launch date in Australia. The promised ‘imminent release date’ has been delayed several times over the last 18 months).

However, a couple of days ago an excited Hyundai dealer shared the indicative Ioniq range pricing with his equally fanatic electric vehicle friend … who then “over-shared” the details by putting them up on the Australian Electric Vehicle Association’s social media page!

Whilst Hyundai are unlikely to confirm the leaked pricing ahead of the launch in a few weeks – it has done them a favour by creating a social media buzz worth of Tesla itself.

So what are the pricing points for the range? Well here they are below, straight from the AEVA social media page (with some commentary):

The Ioniq electric Elite – the full battery versions – comes in at a targeted price of $44,000-$45,000, with the Plug In hybrid version at $40,000-$41,000 and the hybrid (with a much smaller battery) at $32,000-$33,000.

Several things are worth noting here.

• First of all, these are before on-road-costs are added. (The dreaded ‘ORCs’);
• Secondly, the indicative pricing are ranges rather than set figures to allow for Australian dollar fluctuations ahead of the launch;
• Thirdly, the range figures are shown as ‘NEDC’ – which is the now superseded European test cycle notorious for giving wildly over-optimistic ranges. The US EPA range is far closer to real-world. For the BEV, that figure is just on 200km and the PHEV ‘battery only’ range is 46km.

It will now be interesting to see if Hyundai takes up the challenge and applies a few more Tesla marketing ploys – like opening pre-release deposits and/or expressions of interest to further the hype around the release.

Hopefully they won’t continue taking that other leaf from Tesla’s playbook and never fail to not meet a deadline they set for themselves!