Hyundai Ioniq 3 N on the cards as demand for hot hatches grows

Hyundai has hinted that a hot Ioniq 3 N is in the pipeline, with the Concept Three, revealed at the Munich Motor Show this week, containing several thinly veiled hints about the car’s future. 

“The concept is quite sporty, and obviously you have heritage with N brand,” Hyundai’s European boss Xavier Martinet told Auto Express. “I think it's a fair topic to consider.”

The concept, which will develop into the production Ioniq 3 hatchback next summer, contains styling details that also betray its sporting intentions, such as the flared wheelarches, a trick previously deployed on the Ioniq 5 N to create a more imposing look without needing to make major bodywork changes. 

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Hot hatchback demand

“The question is always if there is customer demand? Is there a market?” continued Martinet. “How do you make your car the one that customers want to buy? Generating its emotions is fundamental.” 

The show car features what on first glance appears to be a huge twin exhaust, but is in fact a speaker to help create “an emotive experience through sound”, according to Hyundai Design Europe chief designer Eduardo Ramirez, referring to attempts to make electric cars less sterile against the noise and interaction a petrol hot hatch offers. 

“It is an opportunity. We’re not calling it N, it’s not approved yet,” added Hyundai’s head of design Simon Loasby. “But I think everyone in the company is realising what Europe needs, and that’s compact hot hatches, so it’s a topic for discussion.”

Hyundai’s second N-branded electric car will launch around the end of this year with the arrival of the Ioniq 6 N, a model the brand says will build on the abilities of the impressive Ioniq 5 N. Joon Park, vice president of the firm’s N Management Group, told Auto Express at the car’s launch this summer that the 5 “was just the first lap”, with learnings from the initial electric hot hatch applied to future cars. “We are at the starting line”.

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