At Hyundai, they seem to be into spaceship design recently: after the futuristic-looking (yet very down-to-earth) Van Staria, the Koreans are now showing the design of the small SUV bestseller Kona in advance. It is designed as an electric car, but also comes with an exhaust.
In this case, one almost has to describe the combustion engine as an “alternative drive”. Yes, the Kona ALSO comes in petrol and ALSO as a full hybrid. Technical data or any further details are not yet available. Only when it comes to design and size do they like to be looked at, because that is really sensational: the cute little Kona grows by a whole shoe size to 4.36 meters! This means it is 15 centimeters longer than its predecessor and is even one of the big ones in the compact class, to which it hasn’t really belonged before. Logically, the other dimensions have also grown. The Kona is 25 millimeters wide, and the front and rear axles will be six centimeters further apart. It looks extremely spacious, with a continuous LED strip each at the front and rear. But each variant has its own characteristics. There are three in number: the combustion engine/hybrid, the electric Kona and the sports variant called N. Long light strips The most luminous distinguishing feature of the electric Kona is the pixel LED light strip. On the other variants, it is smooth throughout instead. The rest of the front is also very independent. Only the electric gets an additional pixel area there. The only disturbing detail is the loading flap that breaks through the front. With this new design approach, Hyundai has taken a huge step, because the electric Kona was previously a modified combustion engine. Now the electric version was first created as a beautiful design piece, in order to then design the other variants from it. The interior is also massively upgraded. Two 12.3-inch displays merge into one large one. Underneath sits a “floating” console, as Hyundai calls it, on which there are classic controls, i.e. buttons and two rotary controls. The gear selector moved behind the steering wheel. Everything makes a valuable impression, supported by the colored ambient lighting. We can expect the second generation of the Kona at the dealer in autumn 2023. From 26,000 euros it will probably no longer be available.
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