Tech chaos with Hyundai’s latest EV drop left nearly half Ioniq 5s and 6s unsold

Hyundai has revealed the full extent of the website problems in what was the  biggest ever drop of EVs in Australia on Wednesday, revealing that nearly half of the 470 Ioniq 5s and Ioniq 6s on offer were left unsold after the first day.

The practice of “dropping” the offerings on the internet at a certain time – like tickets to a rock concert – has caused great interest, and frustration, and usually these offerings are filled within minutes.

But the Wednesday drop  – including 300 Ioniq 6s (on offer for the first time) and 170 of the hugely popular Ioniq 5s – was encountered major difficulties, with the site failing on multiple occasions.

At the end of the first day, 48 Ioniq 5’s and 142 Ioniq 6s were left unsold, although that number has reduced after customers managed to get back online on Thursday.

A Hyundai spokesman said the technical issues centred around the “drive-away” calculator. “Customers saw errors when typing in postcodes, for example. The technical issue caused the website to go into ‘protection mode’. We are still trying to determine exactly what caused the problem,” he said.

“It’s worth noting that we sold around 750 Ioniq 5’s last year and in this one drop we had nearly 500 Ioniqs, so we are delighted that stock seems to be freeing up.

“With the technical issue, in simple terms we sold around 100 in the first hour and 180 in the next three hours. Although you might say this is ‘slower’ than usual, we are delighted – if we can make more stock available, customers can take their time with the online ordering process and really enjoy it.”

The spokesman said the company is hoping to secure around 200 to 300 of the Ioniq EVs cars a month going forward.

The Driven has had a look at a few locations for the Ioniq 5 and there are still multiple few units still available.  Most of the available EVs were the top-of-the-range Epiq AWD variant starting at $85,000 before on-roads.

The configurator still allows buyers to see what’s available in their state or to Register Interest in a variant/configuration that may not be available.

The Driven tried to go through Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 shop configurator for various states and Ioniq 5 Epiq edition appeared available across many parts of Australia.

This variant now comes with digital rear-view mirrors which are found in some of the Hyundai/Genesis family of ground-up EVs.

Last month’s release included just the Ioniq 5 SUV, where 250 EVs were snapped up in only 15 minutes. 

Similarly, the new Ioniq 6 all-electric sedan had the Dynamiq 2WD variant available through its configurator.

This time around it was Hyundai’s most significant drop in electric cars we have ever seen with over 470 vehicles being made available to Australians interested in switching to an EV.

Of the 470, the bulk was the brand new Ioniq 6 “streamliner” sedans. As mentioned, some are still available. 

300 of these examples were available in February with 76% of the total being the more efficient Dynamiq 2WD variant. Only 71 AWD variants were available in the form of 36 Techniq and 35 top-of-the-range Epiq variants.

Given the larger number of Dynamiq variants available to order, it makes sense to have a few still available for customers to order. This variant offers up to 614 km of range with the single-motor powertrain offering up to 168 kW of power and 350 Nm of Torque.

Deliveries of the Ioniq 6 sedan would happen within three months of the order placement.