In profile, the Ioniq 3 has a sleek front-end that transitions into a roofline that continues vertically above both the front and rear occupants before merging with the rear spoiler. It’s that roofline that maximizes interior headroom for rear passengers, but it also offers a reported class-leading drag coefficient of 0.263.
The car shares the same underpinnings as its sister brand, Kia’s EV2. The two battery options will provide an estimated WLTP range of 344 km (about 214 miles) for the standard range Ioniq 3; The long-range version is believed to be good for a competitive 308-mile range. Built on the group’s Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP), the car features a 400-volt architecture for lower costs, instead of the 800-volt system of the Ioniq 5 N, 6, or 9 SUVs. Still, this means that if you can find fast enough DC charging, in theory, you can top up from 10 to 80 percent in about 29 minutes (AC charging capacity is up to 22 kW).
That’s fine, but it doesn’t match BYD’s new Blade 2.0 battery technology that WIRED tried out, which surprisingly allows the Denza Z9 GT to charge its battery from 10 percent to just 9 minutes. True, that battery tech was in a $100,000 “premium” EV, but it’s also coming to BYD’s broader models. And if BYD makes good on its plan to give the charging network a chance to rival Tesla’s Superchargers, buyers will soon expect comparable charge times, and 30 minutes will soon seem a lot longer.
I asked Jose Munoz, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor Co., whether this new battery technology from BYD worries him, whether Hyundai – which has been leading the EV pack with 800-volt architecture for so long – needs to match the Blade 2.0’s performance. “We welcome the challenge,” Munoz told me. “Every challenge is an opportunity to do better. And I can tell you that, lately, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to do better.”
“We’re also working on fast charging,” says Munoz, adding that Hyundai’s success will be based not on just one leading technology, but on several. “There are no more elements that the Chinese have introduced that we can introduce. It’s just a matter of how you mix them. Many times, you get stuck in one indicator. I’m an engineer. And we always have the example of the aeroplane: What is more important in an aeroplane, altitude or speed? There’s only one answer to that. You need to achieve both.”
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