Hyundai has revealed their Ioniq 6 EV, with a design language they’re calling “Electrified Streamliner.”
The company’s design department has continued to deliver on their promise of “no visual consistency between models;” where the IONIQ 5 is all angles and facets, the IONIQ 6 is more used bar of soap.
At first blush the design of the IONIQ 6 looks somewhat bland and derivative—if it was a wine, you’d taste notes of an older Passat with an E-class finish—but the more I look at it, the more I’m impressed with the designers’ focus on form and notable lack of needless body creases.
The tail, in particular, is one area where a lot of different surfaces could have come crashing together messily, but I think the designers did a great job of reconciling all of the junctures in a clean, intentional-looking way.
What’s most interesting to me about the form is that its look serves an actual purpose: Because this is an EV and the drag coefficient affects the range, the designers and engineers tuned the form to return a super-low drag coefficient of just 0.21. (For contrast’s sake, a C8 Corvette has a drag coefficient of 0.32.) This provides some hope that drivers’ range anxiety can continue to push aesthetic design in a less-is-more direction.
Their designers have also been pushing the interiors towards minimalism:
Hyundai, for their part, describes the design with decidedly more flowery language:
“IONIQ 6 is characterized by clean, simple lines and a pure aerodynamic form that Hyundai designers describe as Emotional Efficiency. IONIQ 6’s electrified streamliner typology and mindful cocoon-like interior embody a silhouette for the new era of electric mobility, while the overall design theme of Ethical Uniqueness reflects Hyundai’s customer-centric commitment to energy efficiency and environmental responsibility.”
I guess the last place that less-is-more will make inroads will be in marketing language.
Source: core77