Hyundai has given us the first concrete details of its incoming new electric Kona crossover, which will go on sale in Ireland in the third quarter of 2023.
Visually, you can see a certain kinship between the new Kona and the current model, but this electric version takes clean styling to the next level, with a chiselled face that's broken only by a thin strip of LED lights around the edge of the bonnet, giving it a distinctly futuristic, robotic look.
Slippery aerodynamics
The charging port is also in the nose (which will make public chargers slightly easier to use), and, as with the current Kona, the main lighting units are mounted down low on the nose, out at the sides. Despite the chunky styling, the Kona boasts a slippery drag co-efficient of just 0.27Cd.
The new Kona will get an exceptionally long range from its biggest battery option. The largest battery on offer in the new Kona is a 65.4kWh unit, slightly larger than the current model's 64kWh, and it's good enough for a 490km range - about 5km more than you get from the outgoing Kona. There will also be a smaller 48.4kWh battery, for which Hyundai isn't yet giving an official range claim, but which should be good for around 350km on one charge.
The Kona Electric will get a 400-volt charging system which means it can charge from 10-80 per cent capacity in around 40 minutes. There's a vehicle-to-load setup, which means you'll be able to use the Kona to charge other items such as e-bikes, e-scooters and even, in a pinch, other electric cars. There's also a battery conditioning system (which heats the battery or cools it down, as needed to allow the fastest possible charging) and even a heating system for the charging socket cover so that you can still get it open in icy (Hyundai says down to -30 deg) temperatures.
Bigger boot
The new Kona Electric is bigger and roomier than the current model. It gets a significantly bigger boot - 466 litres compared to the current Kona's 322 litres, and there's an extra 27-litre 'frunk' in the nose - and it will get an interior that looks and feels far more 'premium' than that of the current car.
The Kona's cabin draws on the hugely successful Ioniq 5 for its style and tech, with a slab of digital screens in front of the driver and atop the dashboard and lots of storage space in the centre console thanks to the fact that the gear selector has been moved to the steering column.
Although the twin 12.3-inch screens will be running the very user-friendly software from the Ioniq 5, we're pleased to see still quite a few physical buttons in the Kona's cabin, which should make it easier to work with when driving.
Up front, there's ambient lighting and over-the-air software updates for the screens, and a 12-inch Heads Up Display projected onto the windscreen for the driver, and you'll be able to use your phone or smart-watch as a key. The screens also use Hyundai's new Connected Car Navigation Cockpit (ccNC), which promises "advanced graphics and perfect unity among the vehicle displays." There's also a full 360-degree camera system, and high-end versions will get an eight-speaker Bose stereo.
Remote parking
On the safety front, a camera watches the driver for signs of drowsiness. The smart parking assistant will do the backing in and out for you, allowing you to remotely shuffle the Kona forwards and backwards from outside the car using the key fob. The safety features include Forward Collision-avoidance Assist 2.0 (FCA 2.0), which "provides evasive steering, junction crossing, lane change ongoing and lane change side lane" assistance. There's also a blind spot monitor, an intelligent speed limiter and more.