With production due to end in South Korea in July, hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions of the Hyundai Ioniq hatchback will soon be discontinued, Hyundai Motor Company confirmed on Monday.
In the U.S., the Hyundai Ioniq Electric was discontinued after the 2021 model year. While the hybrid and plug-in hybrid remained available for the 2022 model year, they appear to have been dropped from order sites and are nearly gone from all dealer inventory.
Despite the wider release, Hyundai Motor America declined to confirm to Green Car Reports that these models won't be coming back for 2023, and it might still be possible to provide a short model-year run with vehicles already built, in distribution channels.
Introduced for the 2017 model year as a rival to the Toyota Prius, the Ioniq hatchback is not to be confused with the Ioniq 5, the first model in a new EV sub-brand. Scrapping the Ioniq hatchback should help eliminate confusion with this sub-brand, which will soon grow to include the Ioniq 6 sedan and Ioniq 7 SUV.
2022 Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid
Hyundai claims that the Ioniq hatchback was the world's first car available with three distinct electrified powertrains. The Honda Clarity lineup would be another. The Clarity was introduced with plug-in hybrid, battery-electric, and hydrogen fuel-cell powertrains, but Honda gradually whittled down the lineup to just the fuel-cell version.
Hyundai achieved impressive levels of efficiency across the Ioniq lineup. The Ioniq Blue hybrid was one of the most fuel-efficient models available in the U.S. market for model year 2022 with an EPA-rated 59 mpg combined (58 mpg city, 60 mpg highway).
The Ioniq Electric was a standout for efficiency, too, and purely by the numbers it went farther per kwh than the Ioniq 5. And the Ioniq Electric was formerly one of the lowest-priced EVs available in the U.S. before its discontinuation at the end of the 2021 model year for the U.S. Hyundai dropped the price of the Kona Electric to help make up for that.
2022 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid
The Ioniq 5 and Kona Electric effectively fill the space left by the Ioniq Electric. While less efficient than the discontinued hatchback, both offer more range.
On the hybrid front, the Elantra Hybrid sedan mostly replaces the Ioniq Hybrid hatch, and it has improved drivability. Meanwhile, the automaker's strategy has been to replace plug-in hybrid cars with crossover SUVs. The Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid hatch and Sonata Plug-In Hybrid sedan may be gone, but the Tucson and Santa Fe crossovers now have plug-in variants.
