New Hyundai Kona EV is no aesthetic knock-out, but should you really care?

Hyundai’s Kona is a contemporary expression of pure, uncomplicated, unadorned and no-nonsense personal transportation. It is a car designed to fit seamlessly into any life, anywhere in the world, carefully scrubbed of cultural signifiers or indications of class. It wears its unconventional looks with quiet pride.

All this makes it sound like the Kona is bland and soulless and not necessarily worthy of your attention. In truth, it's actually rather striking, albeit not exactly elegant, an illustration of how avant-garde ideas can creep into the mainstream and reshape the middle of the road.

Hyundai knows that plenty of potential customers, both now and in the imminent future, are happy to disavow the unduly elevated status the car has acquired. Instead, they're treating cars like a four-wheeled appliance, a means of getting from A to B without attracting attention or causing unnecessary hassle.

Hence the Kona. Hyundai makes plenty of cars that cater to the conspicuous consumer. Both Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 are design statements first and foremost, distinctive but different expressions of how an EV should look to those whose perception of tomorrow’s technology is infused with a hint of futures past. 

Hyundai Kona EV: better on the inside

Not so with the Kona. Straddling the blurry line between mid-sized hatchback and compact SUV, the latest version of this electric four door is not going to win any beauty contests. Certain details are clearly brought over from its more stylish siblings, like the triangular creases on the side panels and the dot matrix-style lower front grille. Overall, however, there are two many lines, too many intersections and not enough coherence.

The old Kona was also pretty fussy, but this new car appears to be akin to a transitional fossil, a waypoint between the curvier Hyundais of old and the creased edges of the company’s current retro-future direction.

The rear view is probably the most uncompromising, with pronounced wheel arches that terminate in the light clusters, all set beneath a wide brake-light strip; the effect is two separate cars that have been spliced together in a CAD program. Even the relatively clean front end suffers from a lack of definition and character.

But all this should matter, because this is a car for those who don’t care, right? In any case, what matters most is where you’ll be spending most of your time, the interior. A step change along from the older model, the Kona is comprehensively equipped with functions like a live rearview display that pops up in the instrument cluster when you operate an indicator. 

There’s also storage, space and plenty of buttons and functionality, like the ability to send some of the EV’s power to an external appliance. Hyundai also offers in-car streaming via Amazon Music (if you have an account), with voice recognition promised further down the line.

The Kona is not a bad car by any definition. Range is more than decent at around 300 miles, with EV performance to match, and it’s compact and utterly easy to live with, with Hyundai’s history of fine reliability and long warranties to boot. Automotive aesthetics are purely subjective and shift with the passing of time. Give it a few years, and this modest mid-sized EV will probably have accrued plenty of much-needed character.

Hyundai Kona EV, from £32,450, Hyundai.co.uk