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The Hyundai IONIQ 6 Deserves To Do Well In Singapore. But Will It?
If one car is set to change Singaporean attitudes to Hyundai as a brand, the new all-electric Ioniq 6 is it.
Good:
- Fast charging
- Long range
- Handling
- Ride quality
- High-end interior
Less good:
- Limited boot space
- Little steering feel
- Some hard plastic in the interior
What is the Singapore Ioniq 6?
Bucking the trend for SUVs, Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 may seem something of an oddball at first glance, but the sleek sedan is likely to win friends for its superior ride and handling and overall quality feel.
It is a sister car to the made-in-Singapore Ioniq 5 SUV, which may well prove an unlikely competitor, given its lower price and option of a lower-power Category A COE variant.
In Singapore, the launch model for the Ioniq 6 is the higher-end dual-motor version, with a 74kW motor at the front and a 165kW motor at the rear, endowing the sleek sedan with a very brisk 5.1-second 0-100km/h sprint time.
That’s not the only speedy thing about the Ioniq 6: Thanks to its 800-volt architecture, with the right charger (for which read 350kW DC) the battery can be charged to 80% capacity in a mere 18 minutes.
A standard 11kW AC home charger does the job of topping up the battery in a more leisurely seven hours and 10 minutes.
To ease the “range anxiety” for first-time EV owners, the Ioniq 6’s 77.4kW battery boasts a claimed 519km driving range, meaning an average driver in Singapore could go for more than a week between charges.
There’s driver assistance too. A forward collision avoidance system warns the driver of any risk it senses and can apply the brakes, and it will apply steering avoidance if it senses the risk of hitting a pedestrian or oncoming or following vehicles when lane changing.
The lane centering system is excellent – one of the best in the market for finding the middle of the lane and sticking there, making longer drives much less fatiguing.
There’s even remote parking, to get the car into or out of those occasional tight parking spots.
How does the Ioniq 6 drive?
The driving experience of the Ioniq 6 is arguably its biggest surprise — the Ioniq 6 is one of only a few EVs that are seriously good to drive.
Partially this is because lower cars ride and handle better than SUVs, and because EVs are also capable of some – err – electrifying performance along with their lower emissions.
Grip levels in the Ioniq 6 are phenomenal. You can push hard through corners and the car stays true and tracks to the line that you’re asking for, though there is little steering feel. To top this off, the body control is excellent – there’s no pitching or wallowing.
The driver can use the paddles behind the steering wheel to adjust the braking regeneration, which on its highest setting means you can set it to retard progress as soon as you lift off the accelerator, while on the lowest setting it will coast further. In the latter mode the brakes actually have decent feel for an EV.
This driving experience comes without compromising ride-quality, which is supple and well-insulated from road irregularities, and controls mid-corner bumps well.
On top of this the cabin is surprisingly silent at almost all speeds, and insulated glass helps with keeping road noise to a minimum. The motors are almost silent and deliver power in such a linear fashion that it is a pleasure to drive.
Arguably, without the rear-view cameras of the test car, Singapore vehicles with regular mirrors may make a bit more noise at speed, but it is unlikely to ruin the overall quality feel.
What’s the interior like?
Quality is a hallmark of the interior of the Ioniq 6 as well.
Some of the interior materials are hard to the touch. Quite a lot are made from recycled or bio-dynamic materials, which may explain this. The carpets are actually made from recycled fishnets! The parts that you touch most frequently feel really nice though.
Hyundai has chosen to make the interior easy to understand and more conventional feeling than a lot of electric cars, which is not a bad thing. There’s a dedicated panel for climate controls, for instance, which means no fiddling with touch screens to set the interior temperature you want.
There are screens, of course.
At the centre is a 12.3-inch infotainment and navigation touchscreen which connects to Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, but only by wire. Driver info is on a separate 12.3-inch screen in front of the driver.
They’re nice big, bright, crisp screens, though the driver display always shows the remaining range prediction in large font, and because the range is so good, it seems a bit odd to show that “range anxiety” inducing number so prominently.
Overall, though, ergonomics are excellent.
The back seats aren’t quite as good as the front, but the legroom is palatial. Because the battery is under the floor, the seating position is quite high and the headroom is limited, though probably only people over 6-foot will notice.
It may not look like it, but the boot is sedan style, and offers a relatively small 401 litre cargo space, which is quite a lot less than the Ioniq 5, though the rear seats can be folded forward for more space. The “frunk” on the AWD model in Singapore is only 14.5 litres, which is quite compact.
Still, overall the build-quality is immensely good. There are no rattles, everything fits together perfectly, there’s as much tech as most owners will want, and even a nice Bose premium audio system to top it all off.
Conclusion
While we live in a world where it seems everyone wants an SUV, the Ioniq 6 is something of an outlier.
It also stands out for its sleek styling, though many find the rear somewhat challenging. Still, there are loads of lovely design details, and we think the lighter-colour cars are the choice if only because they make those details stand-out more.
If there was ever a compelling argument to buy an EV sedan, the Ioniq 6 is it. It drives very well, it is refined and quiet, the interior quality is excellent, and for an EV it is easy to understand.
The main downside is that because of its Cat B COE, it will be out of reach for many. This is a shame, because the Ioniq 6 deserves to sell well.
Check out our Ioniq 6 car review here.
The video is produced by Chasing Cars, partner of our sister company Budget Direct Australia. Some features or options in the car build may not be applicable to the Singapore market (including the availability of car parts). All prices quoted in the video are in AUD. Remember to check with your local dealer for details.
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