The Hyundai Ioniq 6’s striking design is functional, not just fashionable

The Hyundai Ioniq 6 will definitely turn heads, with design features that may get cause some concern but aspects of aerodynamics make a real difference.

The 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 6

Is there anyone who doesn’t find it hard to look at another human being who has stretched their earlobes to the point that they can carry small side plates in them? Personally I find it hard to concentrate on what they’re saying, because I’m biting my tongue so hard to stop myself from screaming, “Oh my God, your ears! Have you never seen a mirror?!”

I recently spent several days with a young man who had obviously caught his reflection by mistake, because he’d removed the offensive ear castanets, leaving him with lobes that looked like sad shoelaces.

I found looking at him at all quite difficult (and I held off a whole day before asking, “So, any regrets?”), an experience that happened to me again recently when I borrowed the new Hyundai Ioniq 6 electric vehicle.

Yes, of course, I had seen photos of it and noted that it seemed in danger of a legal suit from Mercedes-Benz, so clearly had it borrowed that brand’s love of making its cars look like a downturned mouth from side on. And I mean a really exaggerated one, like a clown frown.

The Hyundai Ioniq 6

The Ioniq 6 really takes this to great lengths at the rear, where the line of the car seems to drop away as if the designer fell asleep holding his crayon.

Now look, I don’t want to write an entire review about the styling of a car, but I’m tempted to at this point, because when I approached this thing from the rear for the first time I had to hold my hand up to my face in shock and disbelief.

If you try this, splitting the top of the car from the bottom, you see that Hyundai’s brave designers have also decided to borrow heavily from another premium German product, Porsche. While the hanging bottom of the rear end is definitively Benz, the top half has the duck-tail rear wing and the wide-ass look of an older 911 Turbo.

Yes, this was a piece of design that was much loved, in its day, but sticking it to the top of a different car’s butt and trying to make something cohesive out of it has created something that looks like a manta ray attempting to mate with a dolphin. I felt embarrassed and awkward about looking at it, so much so I felt compelled to find out why Hyundai has done it.

The dashboard of the Ioniq 6

It turns out, the Ioniq is what they’d like us to call an “electrified streamliner”, which means that its swoopy looks are all about aerodynamics. The goal was a to make it one of the most aero-efficient cars in the world, which it is, with a drag coefficient Cd of just 0.217. And that means it cuts through the air and uses less energy, which means more range.

And that, in EV world, is a real selling point, with the Ioniq 6 available in a Dynamiq variant with a single motor (on the rear axle, so sweet rear-end handling) that offers a whopping 614km of claimed range. When I picked up the car, the screen was showing 593km to empty, which is the most I think I’ve ever seen on an EV.

But I’d still rather stop to charge more often than look at something this disturbing.

The best thing about the Ioniq 6’s design - which also seems unusual because it doesn’t look like it’s part of the same family as the Ioniq 5, indeed it seems like they come from different species entirely - is that it’s quite nice inside.

A dynamic shot of the Ioniq 6

I much preferred the moodier tones and richer textures of this car to the “well, that’s not going to wear well” bright-white interior of its theoretical little brother, the Ioniq 5.

In driving terms, at least, the 5 and 6 don’t feel so far separated, with a familiar effortless torque shove from the new 6 connected to firm, precise and yet not overly meaty steering. I also loved the steering wheel in this car, because the four dots across the boss light up to indicate which mode you’ve shifted into (Sport is by far the best choice and will get you to 100km/h in 5.1 seconds).

Unfortunately what’s happening just behind that, on the driver’s dash readout, is a bit of a mess. This Ioniq 6 goes to the trouble of using a camera to detect the shapes of what is coming at you and then displaying it digitally for you. So, if there’s a roundabout ahead, it will show a picture of one on the dash. But here’s the thing, I can already see that there’s a roundabout coming, because I’m looking at the other very handy display technology Hyundai provides with this car, a windscreen.

The idea that there’s some safety benefit in inviting your eyes to look away from the road to be told what they’d be seeing if they just stayed where they bloody well should be makes zero sense to me.

The interior front seats of the Ioniq 6

Then there’s the Intelligent Speed Limit Assist system, which is in the running for the Worst Ideas Ever Awards. I’ve encountered this beeping bastard of a thing before, on sister company Kias, and now it’s leached into Hyundais. Ugh.

Basically the system reads speed signs and if it notices that you are exceeding a posted limit it beeps at you - loudly. And not if you’re five or 10 over, oh no, it starts as soon as you creep just a couple of km/h above the limit.

Worse yet, the system is stupid, so it doesn’t know that 40km/h school speed zones don’t operate at night, or weekends. And it doesn’t just beep once, it’s constant, maddening. And quite possibly a reason not to buy the car, because you can’t just turn it off with one button on the steering wheel, you have to go through menus to find it on the central screen. And worst of all, every time you restart the car it defaults back into action.

Yes, every time. I hated it, in case you couldn’t tell.

If the Ioniq 6 appeals to you - maybe you have huge earlobes, for example - you can get into one from as little as $74,000, for the 168kW/350Nm single-motor Dynamiq, or you can splash out $83,500 for the all-wheel-drive 239kW/605Nm twin-motor Techniq variant. Both models use a 77.4kWh battery pack and offer 350kW-capable charging (people who speak fluent EV are nodding sagely at this point).

I guess it’s possible that all EVs will have to look like this in the future, for the sake of being aero slippery. But I sure hope not.