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The Hyundai Kona has probably the most various ranges of any crossover available on the market.
The vary spans from sub-$30,000 naturally-aspirated four-cylinder fashions by way of turbocharged all-wheel drive variants, the recent turbo N, and Customary and Prolonged Vary all-electric fashions. In different markets, there are even diesel and hybrid choices.
In Australia, that is the priciest Kona you should purchase: the 2022 Hyundai Kona Electrical Highlander Prolonged Vary. You’ll must take a deep breath after saying that identify aloud, and chances are you’ll gulp while you see the worth.
However, the Kona Electrical is now the entry level to Hyundai’s electrical car vary now that the Ioniq hatch has been discontinued regionally, and on this trim stage that is the nicest Hyundai EV you should purchase earlier than you step as much as the Ioniq 5 and upcoming Ioniq 6.
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How a lot does the Hyundai Kona Electrical Highlander Prolonged Vary value?
The Highlander Prolonged Vary is priced from $64,000 earlier than on-road prices, or greater than twice the worth of a base, petrol-powered mannequin.
All colors bar Atlas White and our tester’s placing Dive in Jeju prices an additional $595; an non-compulsory black/gray inside provides $295. Based mostly on a Sydney publish code, our tester rung up at $67,224 drive-away.
That makes it nonetheless eligible for EV incentives in some states, together with New South Wales.
These in search of a Kona Electrical can both sacrifice some vary by stepping all the way down to a Customary Vary mannequin, or sacrifice some equipment by stepping all the way down to the Elite. When you do each, the worth tag falls to $54,500 earlier than on-roads.
MORE: What electric car buyer incentives are offered across Australia?
In top-spec guise, the Kona Electrical is getting up there in value. The bottom, rear-wheel drive Ioniq 5 Dynamic is $69,990 earlier than on-roads, whereas a front-wheel drive Volvo XC40 Recharge Pure Electric is $72,990 earlier than on-roads and presents each extra space and extra badge cachet.
Then there’s the market-leading Tesla Model 3, which in base rear-wheel drive guise prices $65,500 earlier than on-roads. A Polestar 2 Standard Range Single Motor is cheaper nonetheless at $63,900 earlier than on-roads.
The Kona Electrical, even in Highlander Prolonged Vary guise, manages to undercut even the most cost effective Kia Niro EV, nevertheless. Its company cousin prices $65,300 earlier than on-roads in base S guise, or $70,780 drive-away.
It additionally stacks up effectively towards the lower-range Mazda MX-30 E35 Astina ($65,490) and fewer luxurious Nissan Leaf e+ ($61,490).
With a flood of extra inexpensive Chinese language electrical autos due right here over the following 12 months, together with an up to date MG ZS EV, the brand new BYD Atto 3, MG 4 and GWM Ora Cat, it’s doable their success might come on the expense of the present Japanese and Korean fashions at this finish of the market.
The ZS EV begins at $46,990 drive-away, whereas relying in your State the BYD Atto 3 begins at $44,990 drive-away.
What’s the Hyundai Kona Electrical Highlander Prolonged Vary like on the within?
There have been some significant adjustments made to the Kona’s inside in its transition to an EV, however this nonetheless feels just like the cabin of a $30,000 automotive – not one costing over $60,000.
The atmosphere has been improved with a (non-compulsory) black/pale gray inside colourway, changing the petrol Kona’s black-on-black cabin.
However all of the supplies are the identical, which features a laborious plastic sprint high and, extra annoyingly, laborious plastic door tops, with solely minimal soft-touch surfaces.
The Kona Electrical’s distinctive centre console is a blended bag. On one hand, it offers the Kona a extra futuristic look, and frees up cupboard space beneath for a useful storage space, which additionally features a USB-A port and a 12V outlet.
There’s additionally a useful lined compartment forward of the shifter buttons, underneath which sits a wi-fi cellphone charger and a USB-A port.
Alas, we’re no fan of the push-button shifter in fashions just like the Tucson and Santa Fe, and it’s no extra welcome within the Kona Electrical. It’s not as tactile as a standard shifter and even rotary dial.
The transition from petrol to electrical energy has additionally robbed the Kona of inside room, and the petrol mannequin was already no bastion of packaging excellence.
The upper ground, to accommodate the battery beneath, cuts into toe room and, whereas there’s sufficient room for somebody measuring 180cm tall to sit down behind a equally tall front-seat occupant, rear-seat house is satisfactory not ample.
There are nonetheless no rear air vents again right here, and solely a lone USB-A charging outlet. Youngster seats could be put in utilizing one of many three top-tether or two ISOFIX anchor factors, whereas there’s a fold-down centre armrest.
The Kona Electrical has 332L of boot house with the rear seats up and 1114L with them folded (VDA). That’s solely barely lower than a petroleum Kona (374L/1156L), although there’s solely a tyre restore equipment in lieu of a space-saver spare.
There are another Kona gripes that carry over to the EV, together with a reversing digital camera that’s fairly washed out at night time and a head-up show that noisily whirs into place.
Extra welcome are the slick 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment and digital instrument cluster screens that carry over.
The infotainment system particularly boasts fast response occasions and engaging graphics, whereas there’s a devoted EV menu that shows the closest chargers and permits you to toggle settings just like the restrict for each AC and DC charging.
Helpfully, there’s a row of laborious shortcut buttons beneath the touchscreen. Whereas there’s no house button, you may program the star button accordingly.
The digital instrument cluster options totally different graphics relying in your drive mode, although it isn’t as adjustable because the digital clusters present in some autos – for instance, there’s no map view such as you’ll discover in lots of Volkswagen Group merchandise.
What’s underneath the bonnet?
Kona Electrical Prolonged Vary fashions use a single, front-mounted electrical motor with 150kW of energy and 395Nm of torque. It’s mated to a 64kWh lithium-ion battery.
Hyundai claims a variety of 484km on the stricter WLTP take a look at cycle, which is best than an ZS EV (320km), Niro EV (460km) or Atto 3 Prolonged Vary (420km), if ever so barely worse than a Mannequin 3 RWD (491km).
When you’re trying to avoid wasting cash, the Customary Vary – launched final 12 months – has a 100kW/395Nm electrical motor, a smaller 39.2kWh battery pack, and 305km of WLTP vary.
After every week or 333km of driving, together with a mixture of inner-city, suburban, rural and freeway driving, our common power consumption was 14kWh/100km. That’s near Hyundai’s declare of 14.7kWh/100km.
Throughout a rural driving loop at principally freeway speeds, we noticed power consumption of 16.1kWh/100km.
Each AC and DC charging are supported, with the previous providing cost capability of seven.2kW for a claimed cost time (10-100 per cent) of 9 hours quarter-hour, and the latter providing as much as 100kW cost capability for a cost time (10-80 per cent) of 47 minutes.
Utilizing 50kW DC quick charging is barely slower, with 10-80 per cent cost replenished in roughly 64 minutes.
How does the Hyundai Kona Electrical Highlander Prolonged Vary drive?
The Kona Electrical is competent on the street, although it doesn’t really feel fairly as nimble as its compact dimensions would recommend.
The cabin is usually quiet, till you stand up to freeway speeds. It’s then that the inside will get fairly boomy, with tyre noise permeating the cabin.
Experience high quality is kind of good general, absorbing impacts with no trace of crashiness; the Kona Electrical advantages from a multi-link rear suspension, in contrast to the usual torsion-beam of the two.0-litre petrol model.
Just like the Ioniq 5, which rides on a devoted EV structure, the Kona Electrical will take a second or two to choose some bigger street undulations chances are you’ll discover on rural roads.
The steering has some heft to it and does talk a few of what’s occurring beneath, although it feels a contact leaden at occasions.
There’s fairly a bottom-heavy feeling to the Kona Electrical – comprehensible, provided that’s the place the battery pack is. As a consequence of this weight, the Kona Electrical isn’t significantly enjoyable to drive – that is no Kona N, and it could actually really feel ponderous in corners and immune to sudden adjustments in course.
At 1743kg, it weighs 150kg greater than the corresponding Customary Vary mannequin on account of the bigger battery. That makes it solely round 7kg lighter than a Toyota RAV4 Cruiser AWD Hybrid.
The electrical powertrain supplies greater than sufficient thrust, nevertheless – in some situations, maybe an excessive amount of. You’ll must average your throttle purposes as too heavy a prod of the accelerator pedal yields loads of torque steer, wheelspin and normal front-end squirm.
Pushed sedately, the Kona Electrical is fully nice.
You need to use the paddle shifters to toggle between three ranges of brake recuperation, although the automotive will default to the mid-strength Regular mode on start-up.
The best setting is sweet at slowing the automotive down, but it surely doesn’t convey it to a whole halt. Hyundai does, nevertheless, tout a one-pedal driving function which works if the Sensible Recuperation System is activated, and permits you to cease the car by persevering with to tug the paddle shifter.
You possibly can toggle between Regular, Sport or Eco drive modes, plus an Eco+ mode we suspect is for while you’re panicking you gained’t attain a charger in time because it turns the air-conditioning off fully. Eco dulls the throttle considerably, however not considerably.
Whereas the automotive will keep in mind you had it within the Eco drive mode while you restart it, it gained’t recall for those who had Auto Maintain activated. I’ve the identical gripe about my Hyundai Genesis.
The usual LED headlights bathe the street in crisp, shiny mild, and there are useful cornering lights.
Kona fashions are likely to have the worst Lane Following Help calibration of any Hyundai product, however within the Kona Electrical we didn’t expertise a lot in the way in which of the awkward bobbing we’ve encountered in petrol fashions.
This lane-centring system is kind of intrusive but it surely works effectively at the side of the adaptive cruise management to make freeway driving easy.
Whereas we anticipate a lane-centring system to take cost in freeway driving, the common lane-keep help, which defaults to on, is surprisingly intrusive and makes its presence keenly felt in day-to-day driving.
What do you get?
The Highlander Prolonged Vary could also be priced equally to a base Tesla Mannequin 3 or Polestar 2, however Hyundai consists of loads of normal equipment.
Highlights embody:
- Entrance parking sensors
- LED headlights and entrance indicators
- LED tail lights
- Excessive-beam help
- Head-up show
- Energy sunroof
- Heated/ventilated entrance seats
- Heated rear seats
- Heated steering wheel
- Energy entrance seat adjustment
- Electrochromatic rear-view mirror
- Inside ambient lighting
- Two-tone roof (no cost-option, removes sunroof)
That’s along with options discovered within the Elite:
- 17-inch alloy wheels
- LED daytime-running lights
- 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster
- 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment system
- Satellite tv for pc navigation
- Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (wired)
- DAB+ radio
- Leather-based-appointed upholstery
- Passenger seat peak adjustment
- Heated, power-folding exterior mirrors
- Qi wi-fi cost pad
- Harman Kardon 8-speaker audio
- Rear USB charging port
- Acoustic windscreen movie
- Keyless entry and begin
- Local weather management with auto de-fog operate
- Rain-sensing wipers
- Rear parking sensors
Is the Hyundai Kona Electrical Highlander Prolonged Vary secure?
The Kona Electrical carries over the combustion-engined mannequin’s five-star ANCAP security ranking achieved in 2017.
Utilizing older take a look at standards, the EV managed a frontal offset audit rating of 14.97 out of 16.00 – barely higher than the petrol mannequin’s 14.07/16.00 – whereas the 16.00/16.00 rating for the facet impression take a look at and a couple of.00/2.00 for the pole take a look at have been carried over from the petrol model.
Whiplash safety was rated Good, pedestrian safety deemed Acceptable, and the general rating for the complete Kona line-up is 35.07 out of 37.00.
Customary security options embody:
- AEB with Pedestrian and Bike owner detection
- Adaptive cruise management with cease/go
- Lane Following Help
- Lane-keep help
- Blind-spot help
- Rear cross-traffic help
- Driver consideration warning
- Rear occupant alert
- Reversing digital camera
- Protected exit warning
- 6 airbags
How a lot does the Hyundai Kona Electrical Highlander Prolonged Vary value to run?
The Kona Electrical is roofed by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre guarantee and requires servicing each 12 months or 15,000km – whichever comes first.
Hyundai presents capped-price servicing, with most companies costing between $180 and $190. There are some exceptions, nevertheless. The 48-month/60,000km service, for instance, will set you again $725, as will the 96-month/120,000km service.
Over the course of 5 years, it’ll value you $1445 to service a Kona Electrical. That’s greater than you’ll spend in servicing a Tesla Mannequin 3, and definitely greater than the Polestar 2 with its 5 years of free servicing.
Kias are sometimes costlier to service than Hyundais, however the Niro EV is cheaper to service over 5 years if you are going to buy a service plan. This rings up at $1187.
CarExpert’s Tackle the Hyundai Kona Electrical Highlander Prolonged Vary
The Highlander Prolonged Vary is a Kona Electrical with about each function you might need, however its pricing places it in an ungainly place.
It’s significantly costlier than extra spacious Chinese language EVs just like the MG ZS EV and BYD Atto 3, and is priced up towards entry-level mid-sized fashions just like the Tesla Mannequin 3 and Polestar 2 that really feel extra befitting of this type of price ticket.
There’s additionally the temptation to spend a number of thousand additional and get an Ioniq 5, for those who can handle to safe one of many few coming into the nation, because the bigger Hyundai options a way more intelligent and spacious cabin.
Whereas the Kona Electrical is comfy to drive and options know-how that’s straightforward to make use of, the drawbacks of the usual Kona stay and are exacerbated by this greater price ticket – subpar packaging in addition to so-so materials high quality and presentation.
It additionally doesn’t really feel fairly as nimble to drive as its dimensions would recommend, with the Prolonged Vary’s massive, heavy battery weighing the Kona Electrical down.
When you’re new to the world of EVs, nevertheless, the Kona Electrical’s familiarity and ease of use ought to enchantment.
Click on the photographs for the complete gallery
MORE: Everything Hyundai Kona
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