A Hyundai Ioniq 6 SE Long-Range Just Arrived For a Yearlong Test: Style or Substance?

The Hyundai Ioniq 6 is like something out of a mid-1990s techno-dream of 2024, come to life. You know—the ovoid Taurus rebodied to look like a hovercar, making 8-bit MIDI whooshing sounds around New Metropolis, USA, kind of thing. And if you’re hard-pressed to figure out if that’s criticism or praise, join the club. There’s a lot that’s great about the Ioniq 6, like fantastic charging speeds, range that will challenge the stoutest bladders and backsides, and a seriously unique road presence. But from our first peek at it, the styling has been controversial. A rounded, cab-forward sedan in an era where SUVs are squaring off again? Is it regressive or revolutionary? How will we feel about this very adventurous design a year from now? We have a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 6 SE Long Range for a yearlong review, and we’re going to find out.

We’ll have a little help from something that’s already in my driveway. We’ve had plenty of E-GMP variants around as review vehicles, including a recently departed long-term Ioniq 5 that explored the trials and tribulations of reliance on public charging, but this author has put some of his own money down. My main family vehicle is a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 SEL Long-Range RWD, a lease to replace a stolen 2023 Ioniq 5 SEL AWD. That’s right, my family liked the Ioniq 5 so much that when, given an (unfortunate) opportunity to bail and get something else, we went right back into the thick of it. So, for this long-term Ioniq 6 loan, there aren’t just several MotorTrend testing points of reference, we can also refer to our personal ownership experience of two other E-GMP vehicles.

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What We Got, and Why

With its slippery shape, efficient single-motor powertrain, and large battery, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 is one of the longest-range vehicles you can buy, especially at its price point. The EPA combined range estimate is an eye-opening 361 miles, and it did almost 300 miles in our real-world range test. The Ioniq 6 also recharges very quickly at DC fast chargers thanks to its 800-volt architecture, more quickly than its closest rival, the Tesla Model 3. It’s one of very few non-luxury EV sedans on the market, as well.

Note that for 2025, the Ioniq 6’s EPA range estimate is lower—342 miles. That’s due to a change in the EPA testing procedure; Hyundai tells us there are no hardware or software differences between the vehicles. Real-world range and efficiency results shouldn’t change.

The SE Long Range trim we got maximizes range at the expense of some convenience and appearance features. The Ioniq 6 has a cool interior, but the SE is limited to a somewhat dull, mainly black interior with cloth seats (and not the nicest cloth, mind you). It also features 18-inch AeroDisc-style wheels, so there’s a little more sidewall that may (or may not) soak up imperfections better than the larger wheels on higher trims, like the 19s on my Ioniq 5. (In fact, all Ioniq 5s, regardless of trim, ride on 19- or 20-inch wheels.)

The Ioniq 6 SE is otherwise relatively well equipped. It has a power trunklid, a feature unavailable on the equivalent Ioniq 5 SE. It takes a careful read through the spec sheet to find the missing good stuff. There’s no wireless charging pad, the rearview mirror has an old-school manual flip tab for night driving, there’s no digital key feature, there’s no ambient lighting, et cetera. You still get heated front seats, a power driver’s seat, the dual-screen dash, and so forth. Our initial impression is that this doesn’t feel like a stripped-out budget special.

To summarize: maximum range, minimum price, stickering for $43,775 as tested. We’ve sometimes half-seriously called the Ioniq 6 a “budget Lucid Air”—and we’ll see if that comparison rings true on a marathon road trip, braving a gantlet of public DC fast chargers.

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Hardly Hampered by Hardware

Despite its streamlined curves, our new 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 6 is made of the same stuff as all the other Hyundai and Kia E-GMP electric vehicles, like its Ioniq 5 sibling, the Kia EV6 and EV9, and the Genesis GV60. Particularly with the first wave of these E-GMP cars, what’s striking is the diversity of shape and character. This ain’t your granddaddy’s badge-engineered Buick.

Being a single-motor, large-battery model, the rear-wheel-drive SE uses a rear-mounted 225-hp permanent-magnet motor and 77.4-kWh lithium-ion battery, a step up from the ultra-base Standard Range’s 149-hp, 53.0-kWh setup. It packs 258 lb-ft of torque and weighs in at 4,209 pounds, with fairly even weight distribution (47 percent front, 53 rear). Although it’s slimmer than the all-wheel-drive models by a bit over 400 pounds, it’s no lightweight. And yet the torque wave pushes it along like it’s 1,000 pounds lighter. Nor is it slow by any stretch. The 0–60-mph run takes six seconds, well off the dual-motor’s pace but plenty quick for merging, passing, and Sport-mode on-ramp fun. We know this from previous experience with rear-drive Long Range models, but we’ll pay close attention to how the driving experience strikes us over the next 12 months.

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Practicing the Practical

Despite its impressive test results, given the opportunity to purchase an Ioniq 6 after our first Ioniq 5 was stolen, my family passed and chose an Ioniq 5 again. It seems we’re not alone; the sales numbers for the Ioniq 6 have been rather grim compared to its SUV kin. The Ioniq 5 outsells the 6 by a ratio of three to one, and sales in August 2024 slumped to just 808 units compared to the nearly 5,000 5s sold. Although it could be a blip, the 6 has proved less popular overall since it went on sale. We think there are a few reasons for this, some being obvious and a few being perhaps less so, and we’ll explore that over the course of our loan.

MT has already dinged the Ioniq 6 for a somewhat cramped trunk, and for my family it was the concerns about the utilitarian cargo area that tilted our decision toward Hyundai’s electric SUV. We have two kids, the kids have stuff (like bikes, scooters, tricycles, wobble-scooters … so many bulky conveyances!) that doesn’t easily pop into a trunk. The 5’s hatch makes for ample cargo space, especially for awkward items. The roominess of the rear seat helped, too—the 6’s low roofline in the back made it feel claustrophobic. Not that it would be an issue for a while—our kids are still in the single-digit age range—but the 5 gave us some room to grow or take out a booster seat and carry a grownup back there.

Now, we won’t be cataloguing 12 months’ worth of reasons not to buy an Ioniq 6. My calculus was particular to my family’s situation, needs, and desires. But it does give us a unique ability to do a little alternate universe imagining in real life: How would our life have been different if the slinky siren call of the Ioniq 6 had seduced us? Can this sedan handle our regular suburban kid-toting grind as well as its fraternal twin in the next spot over? We’re already enjoying the substantial interior differences, particularly the storage space and center console layout, so we should have lots of useful points of comparison.

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