Not constrained by needing to house a lump of metal in the front, 'skateboard' EV platforms give manufacturers the opportunity to approach car design in a wholly different way.
This has led some to fantasise about having classic shapes – like say, the Lancia Delta – riding on modern electric platforms. But who would have thought the revived Delta would come from Hyundai?
That's not to say that the shape of the Ioniq 5 isn’t original. With the intricate graph-paper lights and the wild strakes and slashes down the side and around the wheelarches, it makes the original BMW Z4 look understated.
Mechanically, at least, it shouldn’t really surprise anyone that Hyundai has come up with a thoroughly engineered EV, as it managed to coax impressive efficiency and range out of the Hyundai Kona Electric, and that was still based on an internal-combustion-engine platform.
The Electric Global Modular Platform (or E-GMP) is Hyundai’s new dedicated EV platform. It places the battery pack under the floor and the main motor at the rear, and it should unlock even more capability. The Ioniq 5 is just the first of many cars to use it, having been joined by the Kia EV6. An Ioniq 6 saloon and a larger Ioniq 7 are also near certain.
The platform's 800V architecture – something so far seen only on the Porsche Taycan and Audi E-tron GT – enables 350kW charging and an 80% top up in 18 minutes. If you can find a powerful enough charger, that is, since the expensive Ionity chargers are still not a patch on Tesla's Supercharger network.