Hyundai IONIQ 6 to be as popular as IONIQ 5

Hyundai Australia has revealed it’s received around 3000 registrations of interest for the 2023 Hyundai IONIQ 6 and is expecting demand for the all-electric sedan to match that of its SUV stablemate, the 2021 carsales Car of the Year-winning Hyundai IONIQ 5.

The revelation comes after the brand’s Korean arm announced it had received more than 37,000 pre-orders for the IONIQ 6 on its first day of pre-sale – some 12,000 more than the IONIQ 5 managed.

“This is very strong figure given the IONIQ 6 is yet to go on sale globally, and we have not started marketing the upcoming model locally,” Hyundai Australia PR and CSR senior manager Guido Schenken said in regard to the local figures.

“We expect similar [to the IONIQ 5] levels of interest and anticipation for the IONIQ 6 local launch, but like IONIQ 5 before it we expect demand to significantly exceed supply for the foreseeable future.”

The IONIQ 6 will be sold directly do customers via the Hyundai Australia website – just like the IONIQ 5 is – and if the SUV’s popularity is anything to go by, there’ll be a lot of disappointed shoppers when the first allocation is released.

According to Schenken, the last batch of IONIQ 5s – released on August 10 – sold-out in just 16 minutes, with some 1100 customers vying for the 135 vehicles available when sales went live.

“The focus/priority is on our customers, providing them with the fairest and most transparent ordering and sales process – as well as minimising wait times from deposits placed to vehicle delivered,” he said.

We don’t know yet how big local allocations of IONIQ 6s will be, or how frequently they will be released, nor do we know exactly how much it will cost, but carsales understands the slinky electric four-door will be priced somewhere in the $70,000-$80,000 bracket (plus on-road costs) – similar to its SUV sibling.

It’s also understood that supply of the IONIQ 5 will increase over the coming months and that IONIQ 6 allocations will broadly mirror those improvements

But while the hype has almost exclusively surrounded its new e-GMP models, Hyundai’s existing EV – the Hyundai Kona Electric – has quietly gone about its business and notched up more sales so far this year than any other electrified product in the range.

“Kona Electric demand is still very strong, and like our other EV offerings demand will exceed supply for the foreseeable future,” Schenken said.

As of July 31, 653 Kona Electrics have been delivered so far this year. That’s not far off double the amount of IONIQ 5s (346) and almost 50 per cent more than the admittedly retired Hyundai IONIQ Electric small car (454).

Its crown as the best-selling electrified Hyundai is unlikely to be threatened any time soon, even with the fourth-quarter arrival of the Hyundai Santa Fe hybrid and early 2023 launch of the IONIQ 6.

As we reported yesterday, Hyundai Australia is also pushing hard to secure the Tucson hybrid for our market in an effort to rattle the cage of the segment-slaying Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, and is also planning to launch the looming Hyundai IONIQ 7 large electric SUV before the end of 2024.

For everything you auto know about EVs, listen to carsales' Watts Under the Bonnet: the electric car podcast

Join the conversation at 

our Facebook page

Or email us at 

editor@carsales.com.au