Hyundai Ioniq 5 on sale October 12, less than 400 coming to Australia
- Online orders only for Hyundai Ioniq 5
- Deposits open on October 12, 2021
- 72.6kWh Long Range battery only initially
- More Ioniq 5s likely in 2022
The upcoming Hyundai Ioniq 5 electric crossover could be hard to come by, with fewer than 400 coming to Australia in the first batch that has already started rolling off boats and will be in customer hands within weeks.
The Ioniq 5 will not be sold through dealers, with Hyundai retailing the crucial new EV only online “to provide a transparent and fair allocation of a high-demand model with limited initial supply”.
UPDATE: Hyundai Ioniq 5 Australian pricing and specifications confirmed
A marketing email sent out by Hyundai this morning claims “stock is limited to less than 400 vehicles” and they “will be allocated to customers on a first-come-first-serve basis as well as a customer’s proximity to a Hyundai delivery location”.
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Deposits of $2000 will be taken from October 12, but only to those who have registered an expression of interest through the Hyundai Australia website.
READ MORE: Hyundai Ioniq 5 N gathers pace, Aussies to embraced hot EV
READ MORE: Kia EV6 confirmed for Australia, 430kW GT version boasts supercar performance
And about 100 of those cars are already accounted for to people who have already placed deposits, a Hyundai Australia spokesperson told EV Central.
“We have received around 100 deposits for Ioniq 5 over the last eight months, and over 10,000 expressions of interest submitted. This level of interest is unprecedented for a Hyundai vehicle,” he said.
Those who haven’t logged their details or already placed a deposit – dealers are no longer accepting deposits – have to wait until October 13, with Hyundai warning “the all-new Ioniq 5 could sell out during the early access event”.
Despite the email claim that stock is limited to only 400 cars, Hyundai Australia is also pushing to get more Ioniq 5s in the new year, although availability will depend on global demand and production, the latter impacted by the global microchip shortage that has impacted most big brands.
Ioniq 5 pricing set to be sharp
As for pricing of the Ioniq 5, there’s no word yet, although best guesses have it starting somewhere around the price of the Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus to take advantage of the generous EV rebates, incentives and discounts being offered by various state and territory governments in Australia.
That means somewhere around $65,000.
In the UK the Ioniq 5 starting price undercuts the Model 3 SR+ and in New Zealand the Ioniq 5 starts at the same price as the Hyundai Kona Electric Extended Range, which starts at $62,000.
READ MORE: NZ Ioniq 5 pricing a guide for what to expect in Australia
READ MORE: Hyundai Ioniq 5 to cost less than Tesla Model 3? Maybe…
Given the limited supply and early interest – Hyundai is now holding more than 10,000 expressions of interest – it’s expected the first batch of Ioniq 5s will include only the larger Long Range battery in both single and dual-motor versions.
Prices for those models will be slightly higher, possibly pushing past $70,000.
Ioniq 5 larger than a mid-sized SUV
While it looks like relatively compact in the images, the Ioniq 5 is a sizeable five-door crossover.
At 4635mm long, 1890mm wide and 1605mm high the Ioniq 5 is larger than the Tucson mid-sized SUV (4630mm long, 1865mm wide and 1665mm high).
And because it is built on the E-GMP EV-only architecture – rather than having electric components fitted to an ICE architecture – the Ioniq 5 promises more interior space.
Its wheelbase partially tells that story: at 3000mm between the front and rear wheels it has a longer wheelbase than a BMW X5, Mercedes-Benz GLE, Toyota Kluger and Mazda CX-9.
Single and dual motor for Ioniq 5
There are four battery and electric motor combinations in the Ioniq 5.
The Ioniq 5 will be available as a single-motor version powering only the rear wheels and a dual motor with all-wheel drive.
There’s then the choice of the smaller Standard Range battery, with 58kWh of usable capacity or a Long Range battery with a usable capacity of 72.6kWh.
The most affordable model – which is not expected to be available in that first batch of less than 400 cars – will have the 58kWh battery and an electric motor making 125kW and 350Nm. It has a claimed 0-100km/h time of 8.5 seconds.
Step up to the Long Range 72.6kWh battery and power jumps to 160kW with the same 350Nm. The 0-100km/h time drops to 7.4 seconds.
The dual-motor model using the 58kWh battery makes 173kW and 605Nm, lowering the 0-100km/h time to 6.1 seconds.
The most expensive model will use the 72.6kWh battery with two electric motors making a combined 225kW and 605Nm, enough to propel it to 100km/h in 5.2 seconds.
350kw charging for the Hyundai Ioniq 5
The Ioniq 5 can utilise both 400V and 800V charging outlets allow ultra-rapid charging.
Charging for the Ioniq 5 can be done at 11kW using an AC charger or 350kW using a DC fast charger.
When rapid charging it’s claimed to accept up to 100km of range in five minutes.
It’s also claimed to charge from 10 to 80 percent in as little as 18 minutes, depending on various factors such as the temperature of the battery and the ambient temperature.
The Ioniq 5 also has a vehicle-to-load (V2L) function that allows it to power external devices or even charge another EV.
Crossover just the start of an EV family
Hyundai’s Ioniq sub-brand is set to expand.
Hyundai is already working on a high-performance version of the Ioniq 5 to be called the Ioniq 5 N.
It’s expected to have about 500kW of power, endowing it with supercar acceleration.
Bu there are at least 23 battery electric vehicles currently under development by Hyundai, Kia and Genesis.
Hyundai recently gave more details on the upcoming Ioniq 6 and Ioniq 7 – and they’re just the start of the rapid EV expansion for the only brand in Australia currently selling a regular hybrid, plug-in hybrid, battery electric vehicle and a hydrogen fuel cell EV.
It all relies on the E-GMP platform developed for the Hyundai Group and to be used across models from Genesis and Kia.
The Kia EV6 shares its electrical components with the Ioniq 5 but also gets a faster GT version.
And the recently revealed Genesis GV60 that goes on sale early in 2022 also uses the same EV platform.
Can’t wait, and waiting and ready with my deposit. Would love to know how to get in that initial 100 list rather than wait until next month
Well that went well … not. The web site kept reporting “something unexpected went wrong” when trying to click through the configuration and options pages. It took many many repeated clicks over about an hour to get to the final page where one’s deposit could be paid. But then over another hour or more and maybe a hundred or so clicks of the “finalise payment” button it kept reporting the same “something unexpected went wrong” error. After starting at sometime around 9:42 am (just after receiving the emailed link to the early access site), and continually trying to pay the $2000, at around 12:30 pm the system came back and told me that they had sold out. Oh well.