2024 Hyundai Kona Electric Better in Every Way

The New Kona Electric comes with the best advantage possible, price.

Hyundai has a goodly supply of the petite SUV-style hatch, with waiting times expected to be no more than 3 months. However, if what you want is on hand, the delivery time could be days. Hyundai launched the car late last year, allowing the company to build up a veritable cornucopia of units awaiting owners.

Kona Electric is a simple lineup of a standard car, and a “premium” model. All Kona Electrics are front-wheel-drive, with a standard 48.6kWh or long range 64.8kWh battery. Power to the front wheels is a respectable 99kw/255Nm for the standard range, and an even more respectable 150kw/255Nm for the long range. Premium comes solely in the 150kw Long-Range guise, of course, darlinks.

Through a quirk of science, the range is 505km in 17” wheels, and 444km on 19” wheels for the Long-Range model. The premium gets everything chucked at it, including delicious cooled front seats to waft a breeze up the Khyber.

Looks:

Whether you like the looks or not, Kona Electric has a striking viasage. Give yourself a moment to get used to it, and the design makes sense. There is a bar of light truncating both the front and back, with LED head and tail lights grouped into tasteful little clusters at the corners. It takes a trend started with the old model, and doubles down, but not everyone will like it.

Like IONIQ, Kona Electric has little pixels that pop up all over, inside and out. Instead of my telling you where they are, try finding them. It’s a fun game to play while you’re waiting for the next glass of champers to come.

There are touches of the old model here and there, but the new body is bigger, bolder, and better laid out than the previous generation (which now looks a little last decade).

TOP TIP: 19” wheels look great, but 17” give the best range.

White is standard, with 6 other colours optional.

Video Review: 2024 Hyundai Kona Premium EV Gay Car Boys LAUNCH Reviews – Alan Zurvas 

Video Review: Is  2023 Is Toyota Kluger Grande AWD Hybrid the Best? Full Review – GayCarBoys review – Alan Zurvas 

Video Review: OneCarStereo Wireless CarPlay “Smart AI Box” Review Part 1: Unboxing and first test – GayCarBoys review – Alan Zurvas 

Video Review: Why My 2022 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is the Best Gay Car Mini Review  

#jeepaustralia, #jeep, #jeepwrangler, #wranglerrubicon, #alanzurvas, #gaycar, #gaycarboys  #shorts

• Top GayCarBoys Stories:
  • Sexy Men Drive 2021 Toyota Yaris Cross
  • 10 Sexiest MotoGP Motorcycle Riders
  • DON’T Drive YOUR CAR until you’ve Checked if your AIRBAG will KILL YOU
  • 10 Hottest Racing Drivers
  • Top 12 Best Gay Lesbian LGBTI Luxury Cars
  • Top 10 Gay Lesbian LGBT Cars
  • Top 10 Gay Lesbian LGBT Sports Cars
  • Top 15 gay and lesbian LGBT SUVs
  • Talented Twinks – Callum Ilott Virtually Races Arthur Leclerc

ABOVE: 2024 Hyundai Kona Electric

Inside:

The Premium Kona Electric is around the same drive-away price as a Tesla Model Y, the yardstick buyers seem to judge all electric vehicles by. Unlike Model Y, Kona Electric has an interior everyone is going to be familiar with., with proper controls, buttons, stalks, and knobs.

Our test car, shimmering in a blue-green hew, had a crisp white interior straight from an interior design magazine. It is a classy and elegant affair that seems to lift your spirits. It is light and airy, a term often misused, but in this case thoroughly warranted. Kona Electric’s cabin looks and feels like a Scandy mid-century-modern club.

Kona Electric shares its platform with hybrid and ICE models, yet it shows all the hallmarks of a pure EV design. There is a plethora of storage bins, and a clever centre console big enough for a small (very small) bag. There are clever disappearing cupholders adding to the centre console’s uncluttered look. Buttons, controls, a Qi charger, and the USB-C and 12V outlets, sit a the front of the console, under the climate and audio controls.

Clever old Hyundai has moved the gear selector to the steering column, and is a stumpy paddle with small LCD readout. Rotate the end of it forward for forward, and backward for reverse. P is a button on the end of the paddle. Strangely enough, I kept selecting the wrong gear. Something in my head could not wrap itself around the setup.

The cabin is chockers full of gadgets including heated/cooled seats with power/memory, but the star of the show is the chic digital dash with its twin LCD curved screens. the Twin 12.3” LCD screens float in front of the front passengers where they belong, not relegated to a the centre of the car like an unloved pet.

The curved control centre has a touch screen on the left, then a driver’s display, and finally, a small area on the right, as seen in IONIQ, to hold magentised messages and photos. Like many car-makers, Hyundai is encouraging owners to think of their vehicle as a mobile entertaining space, a lounge on wheels that “conveys”, not merely “transports”.

Hyundai claims the premium Kona Electric has seats that make the passengers feel weightless, but although they are comfortable, only a miracle could make my bulk feel less monumental.

Hyundai group has a magical “star” button that is programmable to the satisfy the user’s whim. There is a screen where car settings can be fettled. I suggest the star button stores that menu so Traffic Sign Recognition can be silenced every trip. After many complaints, this handy-but-annoying feature can now to be made visual-only. The overspeed warning bongs  drive everyone utterly potty, and could previously only be silenced by turning off Traffic Sign Recognition completely. This folly was bound to have drivers reaching for a 3rd martini, even on a 2 martini day.

Although the drier’s seat has an easy-access feature that glides it back for easier egress, it still leaves a vast space in the rear seat. The people in the poor pews no longer feel like they’ve been shoe-horned into an inconvenient area otherwise used for shopping bags.

Kona Electric has the Hyundai Group’s party trick, a domestic power outlet for a bit of VTL handiness. There are also a couple of fast-charge USB-C outlets, and a centre vent for gentle wafts of conditioned air are the rear of the front console.

The cargo area is now 407L with a spare tyre (a segment first) at the rear, and 27L under the bonnet.

Gadgets:

Kona Electric comes over the air updates, and an app. The latter allows users to power activate the climate control, and monitor charging, and other marvellous things, all from anywhere in the world.

As mentioned, the VTL outlet is handy, as are the high-speed USB-C.

There is a full suite of easy-to-use driver and safety features, and of course, the annoying over-speed warning can now be silenced. You have to do this every trip, so as already stated, use the star button to programme the shortcut to car settings, then press the “visual only” option for a blissfully quiet motoring experience.

While its true that the alarm only sounds if the Kona Electric is going faster than the speed sign shown on the dash, the speed is often wrong. It might read 40 for a school zone out of school hours, or display 60kph in a 110 zone.

The Drive:

The drive stories often start with boring stats that have readers reaching for a double vodka, neat. This one starts with me in my PJs doing a milk run at 11pm, because I really love driving EVs and look for any excuse to do so.

The next day was an early one, for our quick overnighter at the Cottages.

150kw is plenty in a front wheel drive SUV, but I feel more comfortable referring to these small cross-overs as high riding hatches. They suit a city lifestyle where the couple slips out of town for a quickie, just as we were doing. There is enough room for sporty types to stowe a bit of gear, and should you want to venture further, a spare tyre has been secreted under the rear floor, just in case.

The old road to the cottages had been in declining health for a decade, but the degradation hit high gear once Covid robbed the shire of funds, and workers. Its best bends are blighted by bitumen past its best, there are potholes that could swallow buses whole, and the crumbling edges could cut new rubber to sherds. In comparison, the newly surfaced road to the inner sanctum affords a higher speed run. If you get really bored, a nearby neighbour has a private racetrack.

The weather has been moody, with appalling thunderous downpours followed by wind that could strip trees bear in a blink. TheKona’s cosy cabin remained a tranquil Eden throughout.

Max loved the steering and ride that made the Kona Electric feel like it was being gently wheeled across the Axminster by a powder-wigged flunky. There were only 3 gay car boys aboard the good ship Kona, with Charlie and Luke abandoning the Hyundai for a temperamental E-Type that has seen better days.

We met up at the shacks, with each punter taking a steer of the new Kona Electric.

The only fault any of us could find was the slowish 100kw AC charging. Ethan thought Kona Electric was rather posh, and Nico was enraptured by a techno-overload. The sound was “a most excellent premium sound system”, said in his best Bill and Ted voice.

Casper arrived late, entering to the strains of “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” (seriously, his timing always was impeccable) at top volume, with the windows of his new Tesla rolled down.

BEST BIT: We all agreed that being able to silence the overspeed warnings was a gift from the heavens.

Worst Bit: 100kw charging max

Conclusion:

Kona Electric has been priced to overlap slightly with IONIQ 5. The real challenge will come from the Chinese car makers who are seriouosly gunning for the existing mastheads. They’re are priced at the level most second-hand EVs can’t beat, something the west can’t ignore.

Tesla is seen as the market’s high-bar, and whether or not the accolade is deserved, is the only EV-only car maker in the Australian top ten. It means that Australians are prepared to pay if they think the value is there. Is Kona Electric value for money?

Kona Electric has a wide dealer network, spares are available, the warranty is excellent, and it is easy to take a test drive if you want.

You decide.

2024 Hyundai Kona Electric

Pricing

Note: All prices are Manufacturer’s List Price (MLP) and include Luxury Car Tax (LCT) where applicable. Price excludes dealer delivery and on road costs.

Lifetime Service Plan pricing

#2024HyundaiKonaElectric #electriccarreview