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Hyundai Opens IONIQ 3 Orders: an Electric Car From £18,495
Hyundai has opened UK orders for the IONIQ 3, with every version taking the full £3,750 grant. Here is what each trim costs and what the money buys.
Hyundai opened UK order books for the IONIQ 3 today, and the price that headlines the launch is one the electric market has been working towards for years: a new car from a mainstream maker, with a full five-seat body and a long range, listed below £20,000. That number depends on the government's Electric Car Grant, because every version of the IONIQ 3 qualifies for Band 1, the full £3,750. Apply it and the entry price is £18,495 on the road.
The car is a compact five-door hatchback, which Hyundai calls the Aero Hatch, built on electric underpinnings and pitched at buyers who want a small EV that can still manage a long trip. We set out where it sits among its rivals in our guide to small electric cars, and the confirmed pricing makes that case sharper than the specification alone did.
What the grant does to the price
The Electric Car Grant removes up to £3,750 from the price of a new electric car listed at or under £37,000. Models in Band 1, the greenest by the scheme's sustainability scoring, take the full amount, while Band 2 cars get £1,500. The IONIQ 3 lands in Band 1 across every trim, and it joins the Kona Electric as the second Hyundai on that tier.
Without the grant, the range opens at £22,245 for the Advance with the smaller 42kWh battery. With it, that car is £18,495. The Advance with the larger 61kWh battery falls from £25,745 to £21,995, and that is the version most buyers will look at first, because it carries the longest range. Higher up, the Premium comes in at £23,695 after the grant, the Ultimate at £26,195, and the N Line Evo, which tops the range, at £28,195.
What the money buys
Hyundai quotes up to 213 miles of WLTP range for the 42kWh car and up to 308 miles for the 61kWh version, both pending final homologation. A rapid charge from 10 to 80% takes about 29 minutes on the smaller battery and around 30 minutes on the larger one, and an 11kW on-board charger covers home and destination charging. The boot holds 441 litres with the seats up and 1,213 litres with the rear bench folded. The car measures 4,155mm long on a 2,680mm wheelbase, and Hyundai points to a drag coefficient of 0.263 as part of the reason the range figures hold up.
Entry-level Advance cars come with 16-inch alloy wheels, LED lights, front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, dual-zone climate control, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and a 12.9-inch touchscreen. The Premium trim adds 17-inch wheels, privacy glass, battery heating and pre-conditioning, a wireless phone charger and a 9.9-inch driver display. The Ultimate brings 18-inch wheels, matrix LED headlights, heated front seats, a heated steering wheel and a wider set of driver assistance systems. The N Line Evo, the sporting trim, gets 19-inch wheels, a larger 14.6-inch screen, sports seats, a surround-view camera and a remote parking function. The IONIQ 3 is the first Hyundai developed for Europe to run the company's new Pleos Connect infotainment system, which is built on Android Automotive.
Reservations, finance and timing
Anyone who placed a reservation before launch can convert it to a full order, and the terms have improved for them: they take the £3,750 Electric Car Grant rather than the £1,500 Hyundai Reservation Saving that was originally offered. Hyundai Finance quotes the Advance 61kWh from £355 a month across 48 months at 8.9% APR representative, with a £355 customer deposit.
Ashley Andrew, president of Hyundai Motor UK, said the response to the IONIQ 3 "has been extraordinary, with more customers registering their interest before launch than for any new Hyundai we've introduced in the UK". He added that securing the full grant on every version lets Hyundai turn that interest into orders, at a price that "puts a genuinely spacious, long-range electric car within reach of far more drivers". The first cars reach retailers this month.
Why this one matters
The IONIQ 3 is the clearest example yet of what the grant list is doing to the shape of the market. A new electric family hatchback at £18,495 sits in territory that was out of reach two years ago, and Hyundai is not the only maker heading there. Our autumn grants update tracks the models that have joined the list, and the direction of travel is the same across all of them: the affordable end of the electric shelf is filling out because the £37,000 ceiling and the £3,750 band give makers a reason to build down to a price. The arithmetic behind that push is the subject of our look at the ZEV mandate, which sets out how much of the 33% target the cheaper end of the market now has to carry.
None of this makes the IONIQ 3 cheap in absolute terms. £18,495 is a serious sum, and the grant is doing a large share of the work in bringing the sticker under £20,000. What has changed is that a buyer shopping at that level can now put a new, long-range electric car on the shortlist next to a petrol hatchback, which was not true a year ago. That is a shift worth marking, and it is the reason this launch matters beyond one model.