Hyundai Ioniq Electric gets a bigger battery and more range

The new Hyundai Ioniq Electric appears to be getting a bigger battery pack and more range. This information comes courtesy of Hyundai's European arm, but we don't see why the Ioniq Electric wouldn't be updated similarly here at some point. We've asked Hyundai for confirmation that this information applies to the U.S. version of the Ioniq Electric, and will update if we hear back.

As it stands for now, the Ioniq Electric has a 28 kWh battery pack, but Hyundai bumps it up to a 38.3 kWh pack with this update. The current version with the smaller battery pack is rated at 124 miles of range by the EPA. The new Ioniq with the larger pack does not have an EPA rating yet, but we'd expect it to be a little lower than the 183 miles it's rated for on the WLTP cycle. It's unclear if this battery pack is just larger or if it's more efficient, too, so we'll reserve judgement for when details of the U.S. spec car are released.

The car's electric motor also gets a power boost. The Hyundai Ioniq Electric on sale now makes 118 horsepower and 218 pound-feet of torque; the new one boosts that to 134 horsepower but keeps the same torque rating. The Ioniq's on-board charger goes from a 6.6-kW unit to a 7.2-kW unit, and Hyundai says the car can go from 0-80% charge in 54 minutes when plugged into a 100-kW fast charger. Just like the other refreshed Ioniq variants, this one gets a few design changes. The most obvious is up front with the shield "grille."

It's good to see the slightly larger battery pack being used to bring the Ioniq Electric in line with some of the competition, but the range is still on the lower side. Cars like the Hyundai Kona Electric, Kia Niro EV and Soul EV all have much larger 64-kWh battery packs and end up with much higher ranges (239-258 miles). That said, we'll have to wait for pricing to see if Hyundai makes the Ioniq Electric a reasonable budget proposition.