All the talk these days is of a Chinese car invasion, but the Koreans have already landed.
In the past decade, Hyundai and Kia have usurped Opel and Ford in the top ranks, gobbling up their market share while also taking a big bite into the likes of Renault and Nissan.
Both are now top five best-sellers in Ireland.
Compare that with BYD, China’s highest-flying flag-bearer at present. It’s lying in 17th place with less than a fifth of Hyundai’s sales to date.
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Admittedly, Hyundai is no blow-in to the Irish market, having been doing the really hard miles here for the past 20 years.
Even in the race to electric, where China is making most of its inroads across Europe, the Koreans haven’t been resting on their laurels. Of the top three EV brands in Ireland, it’s VW number one, followed by Kia and Hyundai, pushing Tesla into fourth place.
Having initially focused on mainstream midsized vehicles for its EV fleet, Hyundai is now topping and tailing its offering.
At one end is the impressive little Inster for less than €25,000. At the other is this Ioniq 9, a full-fat seven-seater for less than €80,000. Keep that price in mind as we move on.
The Ioniq 9 won’t win beauty contests – until you get up close. What looks like a bulbous SUV mash-up in photos is surprisingly slick in the metal.
That front nose has a side profile that could be mistaken for a Range Rover, which is a compliment. Hyundai has a woeful portmanteau for this: “aerosthetic” design.
While that makes our eyes roll, the aerodynamic figure of 2.7 drag coefficient does not. The Ioniq 9 may be a big bus, but it cuts through the air much better than a Jaguar i-Pace and even the current VW Golf.
Hats off to Hyundai designers – they have tried to break free from the formats followed by others. The jury is out on how some of them will age, but they’ve certainly embraced the future. The distinctive multi-square lighting clusters now define Hyundais, but will that look a bit MySpace in several years’ time?
A straw poll of punters I encountered suggests that far more people like this car’s styling than don’t.
It’s far smarter than photos suggest – especially in the rich green, which beats the sea of greys and blacks clogging our roads.
Certainly, the interior benefits if you opt for the lighter grey over the black. If you are going for this car, add a little brightness to your choice; it only increases the vehicle’s stature and sense of spaciousness.
Hyundai claims a range of 620km from a full charge of its 110.2kWh battery pack. That’s ambitious, for the average consumption on our test car was 21.6kWh/100km, suggesting a figure closer to 510km. That still means that for most of the week we didn’t have to venture near a plug.
It’s certainly enough to get you cross-country, while providing more than a week’s worth of family commuting before you need to recharge.
Power and performance are admirable for its size, but this is never going to be a driver’s car. It’s tuned for comfort cruising. Some critics have mentioned the ride can be a little firm, but it was never a feature during our week with the car, and we tackled many mammoth speed bumps along the way.
Our main gripe was not about the ride or power, but the turning circle. You get so used to flicking cars around car parks designed for go-karts that when it takes two attempts to manoeuvre into a spot, it feels like a failure.
The large side rear doors are great for loading and unloading, but can be tricky if you are parked in a tight spot.
There’s a sense of one-pedal driving with the car’s regenerative braking easing in as you lift off. It’s all very smooth, there’s nothing jarring, and it’s only when driving at night that you notice the rear brake lights are flickering when you lift off, indicating that you are slowing down. On one 20km spin, I only touched the actual brake pedal twice: once at a traffic light and then again when I reached my destination.
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Our rear-wheel-drive version claims a 0-100km/h time of 9.4 seconds, but an upcoming all-wheel-drive version promises times of 6.7 seconds and as low as 5.2 seconds in Performance format. That’s impressive on paper, but the car’s handling characteristics would have to dramatically change before you’d feel eager to deliver that sort of acceleration in this bulky seven-seater.
This car’s forte is not about power or performance. It’s about space.
Hyundai has delivered an interior to challenge any big family SUV, while adorning it with a finish that would rub shoulders with many premium brands.
Rear legroom outshines a BMW X7 or Volvo XC90, and it even beats Hyundai’s own Santa Fe.
Call up the third row to cater for some adult passengers and you’ll find it beats its Volvo counterparts and is usurped only by the likes of the X7 or the Mercedes GLS.
It’s plush enough to fool premium buyers. One passenger guessed six figures – and was floored by the €80,000 price tag.
Now that says as much about the outlandish rise in car prices over the past five years, but it’s the new reality that big SUVs touch €100,000 these days.
Access to the third row is via the push of a button, which sends the second-row seats flipping and folding to give enough legroom for even octogenarians to feel it’s not a chore to be assigned the back row.
The same remote folding trick is available for both rows of rear seats via a set of buttons in the boot. Hit them both, and your Ioniq 9 becomes a van.
Hyundai claims that even with the seven seats in action, the boot still has room for five small wheelie suitcases or two full-size golf bags.
Another nice feature that we don’t see enough of is the inclusion of a three-pin socket in the boot. Similarly, the test car came with an adapter for the recharging socket outside the car that lets you tap the battery pack to power any household device fitted with a three-pin plug. Or, if your house is set up for a generator, you could even power the house via the car during a blackout.
This Vehicle2Load (V2L) feature is not unique to Ioniq 9, but it adds to its practical allure.
Getting back to the price, the Ioniq 9 is offering better value than many rival seven-seaters, but without asking for many compromises.
So why this over a Santa Fe? Well, leaving aside the electric powertrain, you are looking at better legroom in both the second and third row of seats, delivered at a lower price.
The Kia EV9 might suit those who prefer more classic SUV styling, but it lacks some of the interior finesse and clever tricks that make the Hyundai stand out, though it’s certainly worth considering as well. The VW ID.Buzz? It’s fun and full of retro charm, but feels more van than family saloon.
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None of these cars are really for people who like driving cars. They are for people who need space. And in this regard, the Ioniq 9 delivers at a price that’s competitive for this marketplace, largely because it knows exactly what it is.
It might seem to be competing for customers in the same pool as Santa Fe, but there is enough difference between the two to allow them both to succeed. And its arrival alongside the terrific Inster means the Koreans have little to fear for now, at least from the talk of Chinese takeovers.
For families who want space, silence and spec without paying German premiums, the Ioniq 9 might just be the most sensible seven-seater on sale.
Lowdown: Hyundai Ioniq 9 Platinum
Power A 160kW electric motor driving the rear wheels and powered from a 110.3kWh battery pack.
0-100km/h 9.4 seconds.
Official consumption 19.9kWh/100km (21.6kWh/100km as tested)
Official range 620km
