The brand new Hyundai Kona comes with one of many greatest vary of drivetrains in the marketplace together with petrol and electrical, plus the hybrid possibility now being supplied in Australia for the primary time.
The hybrid, pushed right here, has an actual alternative to conquest gross sales from Toyota, the longstanding pressure within the petrol-electric market. Whereas EV gross sales are spiking, hybrids are nonetheless a successful center floor.
In comparison with the outgoing Kona, this new mannequin additionally affords extra inside area, putting it extra neatly between the smaller Venue and bigger Tucson within the Hyundai SUV vary.
It additionally affords sharper design, a number of slashes and edges, and an EV-like entrance with full-width gentle bar. With non-obligatory Neoteric Yellow paint and the sporty N Line choices pack, it stands out.
Pure hybrid opponents embrace the Toyota Corolla Cross and C-HR, Subaru Crosstrek, Honda HR-V, and GWM Haval Jolion. You may throw within the Mazda CX-30 and Kia Seltos vary too, although neither affords electrification.
From left discipline there’s the all-electric BYD Atto 3 and MG ZS, which provide extra battery for related cash.
How does the Hyundai Kona fare vs its opponents?
View an in depth breakdown of the Hyundai Kona towards equally sized automobiles.
Hyundai
Kona
How a lot does the Hyundai Kona price?
There are two spec ranges referred to as Kona and Kona Premium, each of which could be optioned with the N Line pack for a sportier feel and look.
The bottom naturally aspirated petrol and hybrid drivetrains are each obtainable throughout all three variations, however the turbocharged-petrol AWD possibility solely comes with the N Line field ticked. The hybrid prices $4000 greater than the bottom 2.0-litre petrol model.
2023 Hyundai Kona Hybrid pricing:
- Kona Hybrid: $36,000
- Kona N Line Hybrid: $40,000
- Kona Premium Hybrid: $43,500
- Kona Premium N Line Hybrid: $46,500
Key rivals embrace:
- Toyota Corolla Cross GXL Hybrid: $40,230
- Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid L: $38,590
- Honda HR-V e:HEV L: $47,000 D/A
- Haval Jolion Extremely HEV: $40,990 D/A
- MG ZS EV Excite: $44,000 D/A
- BYD Atto 3 Normal Vary: $48,011
Costs exclude on-road prices except specified
What’s the Hyundai Kona like on the within?
The brand new Kona’s inside strikes the proper notes in relation to inside applied sciences and storage.
The N Line package deal brings good Alcantara and leather-based seats, and a sporty trying steering wheel with perforated leather-based hand grips and pink stitching. There are additionally brash pink trim inserts on the sprint to finish the look.
There aren’t any actual ergonomic quirks with the singular exception of the transmission shifter on the steering column by your proper knee, fairly near the indicator stalk. You twist the tip forwards for drive and backwards for reverse.
The upside is a liberation of area alongside the centre tunnel, which affords a giant storage tub as a substitute, with sufficient room for a purse, laptop computer or bottle of wine laying flat. Forward of it is a separate wi-fi charging pad.
A big barely curved panoramic contact show spans greater than half the width of the sprint, and places the devices and multimedia in the identical little bit of {hardware}.
The driving force’s devices comprise a digital speedometer and tachometer, journey knowledge, a dwell animation of the hybrid drivetrain system, and a tyre strain monitor. You may select between Traditional and Easy shows, and three graphics types. Quick and candy.
The centre 12.3-inch touchscreen is great, with wi-fi Android Auto and Apple CarPlay that re-pairs quickly and affords voice controls, easy interfaces and sharp graphics, and good processing speeds.
If you need satellite tv for pc navigation, split-screen functionality and a 360-degree digital camera you’ll must improve to the Kona Premium, nonetheless.
Hyundai says the infotainment has been designed to obtain over-the-air updates, so it shouldn’t date too shortly. You can even pair your automotive to the Hyundai Bluelink app, which may remotely unlock or lock the automotive, begin it, and exhibits you the car’s journey knowledge and site.
To its credit score Hyundai is one model that has resisted the temptation to place each characteristic behind a haptic pad or touchscreen. It’s retained loads of buttons, dials and switches for multimedia and local weather controls. No various beats tactile controls.
When it comes to high quality and trim the Kona is a blended bag. There’s the standard use of low cost plastics right here and there however there’s additionally some fairly tasteful trim alongside the sprint and for the seats. It’s all properly put-together.
The brand new Kona is extra spacious within the again seats and boot than the outdated mannequin. Particularly it affords an extra 77mm of rear legroom, 17mm of shoulder room, and 11mm of headroom, and the seats tilt again as much as 32 levels.
My 194cm body had sufficient legroom and headroom within the rear, which comes with two rear USB-C ports, air vents and a centre cupholder armrest. Whereas it’s no Tucson when it comes to household friendliness, it’s way more sensible than it was.
The boot now measures a fairly capacious 407 litres, and in contrast to most hybrids Hyundai truly features a spare tyre relatively than a restore equipment. It’s a slim space-saver, however that’s higher than not having one.
The boot ground now measures 867mm lengthy (up 172mm), 1042mm huge (up 76mm) and 719mm tall (up 187mm), although the ground is about degree with the rear bumper lip.
What’s below the bonnet?
The drivetrain pairs a 1.6-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine with an electrical motor for mixed peak outputs of 104kW and 265Nm – virtually 50 per cent extra torque than the bottom petrol.
The drive motor which powers the automotive at low speeds and once more when coasting, is powered by a small 240V lithium-ion battery recharged by regenerative braking and the engine, mounted below the again seat.
The transmission is a six-speed dry clutch DCT computerized smoothed out by motor help, whereas all variants are front-wheel drive. There are additionally 4 ranges of brake-energy recuperation managed by paddle shifters.
Hyundai claims gasoline financial system on the mixed cycle of simply 3.9 litres per 100km and CO2 emissions of 89 grams per 100km. In city driving the hybrid is about 50 per cent extra environment friendly than the bottom petrol.
Which means even with a small 38L gasoline tank the typical commuter ought to get two or three weeks of driving from a tank in the event that they match the declare, and extra useful nonetheless it’s rated to run on 91 RON petrol.
Braked towing capability is 1300kg.
How does the Hyundai Kona drive?
The very first thing you discover about driving the Kona Hybrid is the shift-by-wire transmission controller on the steering column, which provides it a little bit of an EV really feel.
Like all hybrids it’s at its greatest in city, stop-start kinds of driving, the place you’ll be able to actually squeeze essentially the most out of the small electrical motor and recuperate vitality – simply pull the left paddle shifter and the car will crawl to a halt with out brakes.
Certainly you end up commonly driving as an EV mode, when taking off, driving gently as much as 40km/h, and when lifting off-throttle at pace and coasting.
While you do want petrol energy, the engine kicks in quietly and easily. The e-motor provides a success of low-down torque and smooths out any jerkiness from the DCT, which in flip has slick and easy shifts below engine energy.
Don’t financial institution on at all times matching the three.9L/100km gasoline declare nonetheless. I used to be capable of match that on some commutes, however over the 800km I coated, the typical was 5.0L/100km. In actual fact, over the complete lifetime of the car it’s averaged 5.1L/100km. Which means $20 ought to get you at the least 200km of driving.
If you happen to twist the dial on the centre tunnel, you’ll have interaction Sport mode. This provides some pep into your step through throttle mapping, and the paddle shifters change gears relatively than modulate brake vitality regeneration.
Is it massively punchy? No, as evidenced by freeway overtaking. However the Toyota Corolla Hybrid is sluggish and it hasn’t stopped take-up.
The Kona affords fairly well-sorted dynamics, with responsive electrical steering and good physique management in corners, plus composed trip high quality over patchy highway surfaces.
It upgrades to unbiased suspension at each ends, axing the bottom petrol mannequin’s rear torsion beam. It additionally has a characteristic than each brakes the within wheel and powers the surface, to sharpen up your cornering traces and banish understeer in case you are available too sizzling – form of matches the sporty design.
One side that could possibly be higher is tyre noise suppression on coarse-chip freeway tarmac. It’s not the worst, however neither is it the very best.
There’s one main annoyance nonetheless. The driving force-assist techniques.
The adaptive cruise management and the lane-keeping help with steering help work properly, no points there. However the camera-based driver-monitoring system would beep endlessly even when I used to be paying consideration, and the speed-limit help system will get very offended in case you inadvertently creep over the restrict, even briefly.
It’s not that these options are unhealthy thought, it’s that they want calibration. Driving alongside in a automotive chiming at you for hard-to-discern causes will get tedious. In any case, these options have to be easy to show off or dial again. As an alternative, Hyundai makes you faucet by means of display menus each time you begin the automotive.
What do you get?
Kona highlights:
- 18-inch wheels
- House-saver spare
- LED headlights – reflector
- LED daytime operating lights
- Roof rails
- Proximity sensing key
- Parking sensors
- Bluelink linked app
- Fabric seats
- Twin-zone local weather management
- 12.3-inch touchscreen
- OTA suitable
- AM/FM/DAB+
- Wi-fi Apple CarPlay
- Wi-fi Android Auto
- 6-speaker audio
- Wi-fi charger
- 4 x USB-C ports
N Line Package deal provides:
- N Line 18-inch wheels
- Rain-sensing wipers
- Totally different bumpers, skirts, skid plates
- Black rear wing
- N badges and centre caps
- Chrome exhaust surrounds
- Leather-based and Alcantara inside
- Steering wheel perforated grips
- Black headlining, pink trims, alloy pedals
- LED headlights – projector
- LED ‘Seamless Horizon’ entrance gentle
- LED entrance/rear flip alerts
- 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster
- Electro-chromatic inside mirror
Kona Premium provides:
- Distant Good Parking
- Sunroof – $1500 possibility
- Privateness rear glass
- Good energy tailgate
- Sat-nav with dwell visitors
- Bose 8-speaker audio
- Voice management
- Leather-based inside
- 10-way energy/reminiscence driver seat
- 8-way energy passenger seat
- Heated and ventilated entrance seats
- Heated rear seats, steering wheel
- Ambient temper lighting
Colors (N Line):
- Atlas White: Free
- Cyber Gray: $595
- Abyss Black: $595
- Soultronic Orange: $595
- Final Purple: $595
Is the Hyundai Kona protected?
The present Kona is but to obtain an ANCAP security ranking.
All fashions come the next security options:
- 7 airbags
- Entrance, front-side, curtain, entrance centre
- ISOFIX and prime tether factors
- Autonomous emergency braking
- Automotive, bicycle owner, pedestrian, junction, oncoming
- Blind-spot collision avoidance help
- Rear cross-traffic avoidance help
- Adaptive cruise management
- Driver consideration monitor/digital camera
- Clever pace limiter
- Energetic lane-keeping help
- Protected exist help
Kona Premium provides:
- Blind-spot view digital camera
- Reverse parking collision avoidance
- Encompass-view monitor
- Distant Good Parking characteristic
How a lot does the Hyundai Kona price to run?
The Kona comes with a five-year, limitless kilometre guarantee, or eight years/160,000km for the hybrid battery.
Every of the primary 5 companies (intervals of 12 months or 15,000km) is capped at $399, the identical pricing because the non-hybrid.
When it comes to gasoline prices, it’s price whether or not to anticipate a return-on-investment for the additional upfront price. The hybrid prices $4000 greater than the non-hybrid, with the engines providing respective gasoline economies of 6.6L/100km and three.9L/100km.
That is 2.7 litres saved for each 100km pushed, 27L for each 1000km, and 270L for each 10,000km. At immediately’s common gasoline worth that’s about $500 saved each 10,000km, which means you’d repay the $4000 price in eight years.
In fact, in case you drive in stop-start visitors rather a lot, or if petrol costs spike, this payback interval would come at decrease mileage. Throw in stronger resale and it’s a no brainer.
CarExpert’s Tackle the Hyundai Kona
The brash new mannequin has just a few overly intrusive driver aids, its origami-chic design is sure to polarise, and a punchier hybrid is perhaps good.
However its high-tech inside comes with newfound practicality, and the trip and dealing with steadiness is sweet. It’s actually in its factor in city congestion.
It is sensible to pay the premium for a Kona Hybrid, which can make up the distinction with gasoline financial savings and resale worth down the road, and is healthier to drive.
Click on the photographs for the complete gallery
BUY: Hyundai Kona
MORE: Everything Hyundai Kona