2023 EV OF THE YEAR

THE HYUNDAI IONIQ 6 SHOWS THAT, WHEN IT COMES TO EVS, THE KOREANS ARE IN THE PASSING LANE.

-  JOE LORIO

Here we are again. After gathering the year's new EV offerings for a week of intense back-to-back scrutiny, rigorous driving, and long hours of charging, a Hyundai has come out on top. Following last year's win by the Ioniq 5, that model's new sedan sibling, the Ioniq 6, motors away with the top prize this year. Add strong showings by the Genesis Electrified GV70 and the Kia EV6 GT, and a picture starts to form: When it comes to EVs playing in the broad main swath of the market, the Hyundai-Kia-Genesis group is clearly out in front.

That the Ioniq 6 shares much with the Ioniq 5 is to its benefit, but the new entry does more than just put a three-box hat on the same platform and up the model name by one. "Just look at it, we said of the Ioniq 5 when it won, and we could do the same for the Ioniq 6. While the two siblings' designs are dissimilar, the banana-shaped sedan is every bit as striking as the angular hatchback. We see a bit of the first-gen Mercedes CLS in the sloping profile. Hyundai claims the 1930s Stout Scarab as inspiration and though that obscure machine and the Ioniq 6 are nearly a century apart, once you see pictures of the two, you know the notion isn't just something the designers made up.

Regardless of whether the shape came to Hyundai designers by way of a turn-of-the-millennium four-door "coupe," a Streamline Moderne-era proto minivan, or some kind of fever dream, its aerodynamics give the Ioniq 6 a slip-through-the-air drag coefficient as low as 0.22. We also like it because it's good to see an automaker introduce a dedicated EV that's a sedan (the Polestar 2 and Tesla Model 3 are two others) rather than another mid-size crossover.