New Hyundai Ioniq 9: first look inside the giant electric seven-seat SUV
Hyundai’s new flagship EV will share the platform and running gear from the Kia EV9
The Hyundai Ioniq 9 – the brand’s long-awaited, electric seven-seat SUV and sister car of the award-winning Kia EV9 – is going to be unveiled later this year, but our spy photographers have given us a sneak peek inside.
We can see that the interior of Ioniq 9 will borrow a few elements from the latest Hyundai Santa Fe, with both large SUVs featuring the same curved dual display setup, steering wheel design and gear selector on the steering column. There’s also a similar set of shortcut buttons and touch-sensitive climate controls on the dashboard, but the Ioniq 9 appears to have a floating centre console, which the Hyundai Santa Fe doesn’t get.
The Hyundai Ioniq 9 was first previewed in 2021 by the Hyundai Seven concept, and the design is expected to stay true to that. While the prototypes we’ve spotted testing have all been covered in heavy camouflage, we can make out the very bluff front end with a large set of vertical running lights embedded in the bumper and horizontal headlights above them – similar to the show car. We expect both light units to feature the pixel-style LED design found on other Hyundai’s electric cars, like the Ioniq 5.
Looking at the side profile of the Ioniq 9, we can see its windscreen is steeply raked and the roofline gently slopes towards the rear, unlike the Kia EV9 which is more boxy. That suggests the Ioniq 9’s design will follow more closely in the footsteps of the svelte Hyundai Ioniq 6 saloon, which should help with the large SUV’s aerodynamics and range, but could impact headroom for those seating in the rearmost seats.
The Ioniq 9 will be based on the same E-GMP platform as the EV9, and should be offered with the same combinations of batteries and motors as its fellow seven-seat EV. In the UK, every EV9 is powered by a 99.8kWh battery that feeds either a single 201bhp motor or 379bhp dual-motor setup. The EV9 is capable of covering close to 350 miles on a single charge according to Kia, so we expect the same of the Ioniq 9.
The Ioniq 9 will also benefit from an 800V charging system, which in the EV9 allows for a 10 to 80 per cent top-up in only 24 minutes.
As for a hot N model, the only Hyundai EV that has an N variant is still the Ioniq 5 N, although we’ve not ruled out an Ioniq 6 N after we saw the radical Hyundai RN22e concept. The Ioniq 9 probably won’t make an ideal basis of a sporty N car due to its size and weight.
The exact date for the Hyundai Ioniq 9’s reveal hasn’t been announced yet, however it’s rumoured that the world debut will take place in November at the Los Angeles Motor Show, where the Hyundai Seven concept was first presented.
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