Hyundai has confirmed that it is working on
increasing the range of the Ioniq Electric. Speaking during a recent press
event for the all-new Kona Electric with Inside EVs, Hyundai senior group
manager for alternative vehicle strategy, Gil Castillo, revealed that the 2020
model Ioniq Electric will be fitted with a larger battery pack.
While Castillo failed to specify how much larger the
Ioniq Electric’s battery will become, the current car is capable of traveling a
touch over 200 km on a single charge. While that’s enough for some
buyers, it isn’t enough for the vehicle to compete with vehicles like the
Chevrolet Bolt, Nissan Leaf, and Tesla Model S. What’s more, it’s also
substantially less than the 415 km which the Kona Electric can
travel for between charges.
Inside EVs speculates that the improved Ioniq
Electric’s range could sit somewhere in the region of 300 km,
putting it in the same realm as the 40 kWh Nissan Leaf. Even with the improvements for
the 2020 model year, it remains to be seen how much popular the Ioniq Electric
will become, especially compared to the Kona Electric. Not only does the Kona
look better, its range is much more substantial and more
importantly, it’s a crossover, a body style proving much more popular than
sedans across North America.
