Hotshot’s positioning across the Tasman announced, Kia’s near-equivalent here drops $10k.

SPECULATION about much Hyundai’s electric hot hatch will cost, and how close it will site to a blood relation whose sticker has slimmed, stands to be fuelled by action across the Tasman.

While Hyundai New Zealand’s is in pre-order stage for the spectacularly grunty and adept dual motor Ioniq 5 N and cannot give a release date beyond some time between April and June, the neighbour has locked and loaded.

Yesterday Hyundai Australia said it will have the highest performance car ever made by the South Korean giant on sale for $A111,000 before on road costs - that’s $NZ117,643.

That’s well below the $160,000 tag, speculated within industry circles for months as being likely for NZ.

It is also undercutting the similarly powerful but less focussed EV6 GT from sibling brand Kia, even though the latter’s sticker has also now sharpened.

Conjecture that Kia NZ would give its own model a better fighting chance against the first performance battery car from the highly-rated N-performance division seems to have been realised.

The EV6 GT is now being advertised on the Kia NZ website at $129,000 - that’s $10,000 less than last year’s launch price.

Kiwis shouldn’t get too excited about the N car turning the tables here.

In every market it sells, the Ioniq N has been more expensive than the Kia. That includes Australia, where the Ioniq 5 N is $NZ116,000 pricier.

Also, stickers announced by our neighbour’s retail operation - which is factory-run - have rarely been a guidance for the NZ distributor, an independent, even for product that sells in same or near-identical form. 

Kiwi market mark-up shows most particularly with the large Santa Fe and Palisade sports utilities, which are markedly less expensive for Australians.

Disparity also shows for the Ioniq 5 family, which starts at  just under $NZ69,000 there against $79,990 here, the latter buying a rear-drive base spec with the 58kWh battery. The entry 72kWh battery edition is a $89,990 ask.

Wherever Ioniq 5 N sits, there’s potential the brand here will use a value argument raised in Australia - namely, that the car is way cheaper than a Porsche Tacan Turbo, which offers similar performance and was benchmarked by Hyundai during the N’s development. The Tacan Turbo starts at $347,000 here.

Comparison with the Kia EV6 GT is also not clear-cut as while nboth have the same dual motor drivetrain, in identical tune - so 478kW/740Nm (briefly up to 770Nm in highest performace mode) – the total sum of the driving experience will be rather different.

Hyundai says that as spectacular as the N's outputs are, they played only a small part in the design brief, with the true goal being  to create an EV that’s engaging enough to satisfy proper petrol heads.

The development team worked on conviction that enthusiast buyer group will always been hardest bunch to win over with a performance EV.

Accordingly, instead of chasing straight-line performance, they’ve engineered solutions to help make their futuristic electric rocket feel and drive like an engaging, petrol-powered hot hatch.

N e-shift and N Active Sound are two such tricks.

N e-shift is designed to mimic the shift action of an eight-speed dual-clutch and simulates the ‘jolt’ of up- and downshifts by cutting drive to the electric motors. 

The digital instrument cluster even includes a tachometer that runs to 8000rpm and you shift ‘gear’ via the paddles behind the steering wheel.

N Active Sound, meanwhile, uses eight internal and two external speakers to deliver an “emotional” soundtrack that sounds like a combustion car.

It even pops and bangs during downshifts. Three sound ‘themes’ are available: ‘Ignition’ sounds like the 2.0-litre turbo in an i30 N, ‘Evolution’ copies the noise of the RN22e concept and ‘Supersonic’ sounds like a twin-engine fighter jet.