Up close with the Ioniq 3: Cute in person, and a sign of things to come inside

PARIS — The Ioniq 3 is not quite the car its concept promised, but standing next to it on the show floor, it is hard not to warm up to its round, soft, almost endearing shape. 

Fans who were drawn to the concept’s crisp lines will notice what has been lost, though the production car is far from unattractive. What it offers instead of a sleek, futuristic hatchback is a sense of familiarity, as though Hyundai had taken the friendly face of the Kona and the curves of the Ioniq 6 and folded them into a single compact package.

Hyundai brought the Ioniq 3, its new spearhead for Europe, to this year’s Paris Motor Show. Some 60 automakers are exhibiting at the event, which has become a battleground where Europe’s established carmakers attempt to hold off a surge of Chinese rivals.

The signature Ioniq pixel lights, front and rear, along with the four dots that spell out an "H," look dated up close. The front gets away with it; the rear does not.

The doors break a longstanding Hyundai habit. Instead of the long handles that stick out from the body, the Ioniq 3 has conventional recessed handles that you reach into and pull. What remains a mystery is whether it was done for safety or to save money. 

With Hyundai’s Digital Key, the car can also be unlocked with just a smartphone or smartwatch.

The real surprise is the cabin. It would be no exaggeration to say that a new kind of Hyundai interior begins here.

The traditional instrument cluster is gone, a change that was startling when the concept first appeared.

In its place sits a small display perched on top of the dash, a first for Hyundai, and it looks clean and uncluttered. Analog dials once felt irreplaceable; a screen invites a lighter, more casual approach.

The center display is far, far larger than expected, impossible to miss and reminiscent of a Tesla.

Available in 12.9 or 14.6 inches, it works as intuitively as a smartphone, running Pleos Connect, the Android Automotive-based system, which marks a significant step for Hyundai’s future cars. 

One thing puzzles me. Tesla has no screen behind the steering wheel, so the speedometer and other readouts live on the central display. The Ioniq 3 has both a small driver display and a large center screen, which feels redundant.

It is good to see physical buttons survive beneath the screen. They feel a little old-fashioned, but I hope Hyundai keeps them.

With a 61-kilowatt-hour battery, the Ioniq 3 has a range of up to 496 kilometers (309 miles) on a single charge under European testing.

The price is reasonable. The price of the Ioniq 3, for which sales began in September, starts at 28,950 euros ($32,307) in Germany, 5,040 euros less than the BYD Dolphin, its likely main rival, at 33,990 euros. Germany is Europe’s largest car market and a key battleground for EVs, with battery-electric car sales rising 48 percent in the first half of this year.

Hyundai began manufacturing the Ioniq 3 in August at its Izmit, Turkey, plant, where it invested 250 million euros to convert the factory to EV production.

BY SARAH CHEA   [[email protected]]