Hyundai Motor Group, which operates Hyundai, Kia, Genesis, and the upcoming Ioniq electric car marque, has announced a revamp of its electric vehicle operations. The plan includes 23 new EVs within five years (though, at press time, it wasn’t clear how many will reach America).
The heart of the project is a new platform that will serve as the foundation for all of the company’s electric offerings worldwide. The new Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) architecture uses an all-in-one motor, transmission, and inverter, together with a wide, flat battery pack that sits underneath the cabin. This leaves remarkably little of the car’s mechanical bits located where the traditional engine sits. The layout should allow for maximum use of space for people and cargo, but, we should note, no one outside Hyundai has seen any of the proposed designs.
The E-GMP accommodates both rear- and all-wheel drive layouts, though not the front-drive configuration that makes up most of Hyundai/Kia’s gasoline-powered lineup. The company says the all-electric powertrain should be capable of about 310 miles of driving range. High voltage quick charging promises that the battery will reach 80 percent after just 18 minutes. When tuned for high-performance, the E-GMP should put out the equivalent of 600 horsepower, and be capable of a 0-to-60 sprint in about 3.5 seconds. We should caution, Hyundai did not speculate as to the range of a high-performance edition.
The first vehicle planned for the E-GMP effort will be the Ioniq 5, a midsize crossover set to launch next year, which we’ve previously seen only in concept form.
Today, the company offers the Kia Niro, Hyundai Ioniq, and Hyundai Kona EVs, the latter of which has won our Subcompact SUV Best Buy Award two years in a row.
