While half the car industry keeps gluing SUV silhouettes onto anything with a battery, Hyundai went the other way and built something quietly radical: a hatchback. The Ioniq 3 doesn’t just look different parked among the crossover crowd chasing an ‘electric future’ aesthetic — it’s priced in a way that should make its rivals’ accountants nervous.

The shape is sharp and a little tense, with a raked C-pillar that carries a faint whiff of the long-dead Veloster coupe. Hyundai calls it an ‘aero hatch,’ corporate shorthand for ‘not an SUV, but still frugal with electrons.’ Drag coefficient dips to 0.26 on the entry car — not quite Tesla Model 3 territory, but enough for the aero engineers to allow themselves a small smile.

Inside is where things get properly interesting. At 4150mm long with a 2650mm wheelbase, the Ioniq 3 carves out cabin space that embarrasses most of the supermini class, plus a 411-litre boot topped up by a hidden ‘Megabox’ beneath the floor — because apparently every manufacturer now needs its own trademarked secret compartment. The new Android-based Pleos Connect infotainment system, a first for Hyundai, is slick enough, if occasionally a little too Tesla-influenced in its habit of burying driving-relevant information on the central screen instead of somewhere nearer the driver’s eyeline.

Under the skin — or rather, under the floor — sit two battery options: a 42kWh LFP pack making 144bhp and 213 miles of range, or a larger 61kWh unit that actually produces less power (133bhp) but stretches to a claimed 308 miles WLTP. Yes, the smaller battery is the more powerful one, a piece of EV logic that only stops sounding backwards once you remember that battery chemistry rarely cares about our intuitions. DC charging tops out at a modest 115kW, topping up 10-80% in around half an hour — not headline-grabbing, but Hyundai insists it’s tuned to hold that speed rather than spike and fade.

The driving experience is where the enthusiasm cools slightly. The steering is heavy and strangely numb, and the ride turns stiff-legged at low speed on the bigger 18-inch wheels — enough for Autocar’s testers to mark Ride & Handling down to a 7. Running costs, on the other hand, score a full 10: the entry-level Advance trim (42kWh) undercuts £19,000, while the range-topping Long Range Ultimate tested came in at £26,195 after the UK’s electric car grant.

The overall verdict lands at 9 out of 10 — a rare score for a car with no dramatic power output and no luxury pretensions. It simply nails the fundamentals: space, price and genuine real-world range. Rivals like the Renault 5, VW ID. Polo and MG4 might turn more heads in a car park, but the Ioniq 3 looks ready to win this fight with a spreadsheet, not a sketchbook.

Source: Autocar (https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/hyundai/ioniq-3)