Take a successful hatchback or station wagon, raise it, give it a rugged appearance, and it will sell like hotcakes. The idea isn’t new; Subaru has been doing it since the late 1970s, Americans had the AMC Eagle, and in Europe, Volkswagen in the late 1980s took the second generation Golf and presented it in a "Country" version, lifted, with all-wheel drive and incredibly cool. Today, such examples trade hands for very high sums and are considered highly sought after.
Now, Hyundai is doing the same with its electric crossover, the Ioniq 5. As part of the recent facelift, it added an XRT version with off-road features, raised suspension, suitable tires for non-paved driving, and other perks. This is all part of the rising demand in the American market for light "off-road" vehicles, for customers tired of the empty pose and wanting to use their cars for trips. Thus, off-road-oriented versions of the Subaru XV, Outback, and Mazda CX-50 were born.
In the case of the Ioniq 5, the manufacturer took the all-wheel-drive version with the larger 84 kWh battery as a base, raised it by 23 mm with new shock absorbers, equipped it with 18-inch black wheels, 235/60 A/T tires, replaced the painted plastic skirts with hard plastic units with a digital camo texture, and gave the vehicle a general "blacked-out" look with blacked-out logos, mirror housings, and inscriptions. Inside the cabin, there are rubber floor mats, unique fabric seats for the model that are easy to clean with an embossed XRT logo, and more.
So, it's true, this is not a real off-road vehicle, not with a total ground clearance of 18.3 cm, and even the improved approach and departure angles of 19.8 degrees in front and 30 degrees at the rear (compared to 17.5 and 25.4 respectively in the regular Ioniq 5) won’t make anyone challenge it on the slopes of the Negev desert. But still, for those who want to venture a bit deeper down a trail, this will definitely suffice.
But there’s another very interesting feature that American Ioniq 5 customers get beyond the trail capabilities and the cool appearance. The updated model is the first to receive a charging socket with the NACS standard, or in simpler terms – a socket like Tesla's. This will allow its customers in the United States access to more than 17,000 Tesla Supercharger stations, which not only offer fast charging speeds of 250 kW (it can handle up to 350 kW), but are also considered more reliable and stable than other public charging networks.
In doing so, Hyundai joins manufacturers like GM and Ford, which are already equipping their electric vehicles with sockets compatible with Tesla's standard, adopting its solution for fast public charging infrastructure. In Israel, however, Tesla's stations are adapted to the European fast-charging standard, CCS, but are closed off to other manufacturers' cars.
Hyundai's importer has stated that, for now, there is no intention of importing the XRT version to Israel.