Hyundai Australia sells latest batch of Ioniq 5s in minutes, but more to follow

Hyundai Australia has quickly sold out its latest offering of Ioniq 5 electric SUVs, with 111 of the highly sought-after and multiple “car of the year” award winner selling out in just 14 minutes.

According to a Hyundai spokesman, more than 1,100 potential customers were on line at 1pm AEST on Wednesday, presumably all jostling for the opportunity of buying one of the newly priced, and newly specced AWD versions of the Ioniq 5. Apparently, a technical issue with the website restricted sales in Western Australia.

Hyundai announced last week that changes to the specifications would lead to a wider price difference between the RWD (now $69,900 before on roads) and the AWD (now $77,500 before on roads).

The car company is now trying to make a similar sized offering each month, although it says this will depend on supply from head office. Another 120 plus Ioniq 5s will be offered in August. All cars are able to be delivered within a few weeks of order.

One does wonder, however, just how many units could have been sold had the company opened the floodgates on orders. Hyundai has previously reported more than 16,000 registrations of interest, and previous limited offerings have also been snapped up within minutes.

This latest offering takes total sales of the Ioniq 5 in Australia to 629. The Kia EV6, built on the same platform, has reported similar sales and similar limitations to their offerings.

Tesla, meanwhile, is believed to have sold more than 12,000 of its Model Y electric crossovers since they were offered for sale in Australia early last month, with the first deliveries expected in coming weeks.

The true number may be much higher than that. Tesla chair Robyn Denholm said this week the company was expecting to double its number of EVs in Australia by the end of the year to more than 50,000.

That suggests more than 20,000 new EV deliveries in five months. Some of these will be Model 3s, but most are likely to be Model Ys. And that does not include the number of EVs that will be delivered in the new year.