The Hyundai Ioniq is not alone on the world, although his name is composed of supposedly 'Ion' (electrically charged particle) and unique (one-time). Because he shares his apparently complete substructure with the Niro from Kia, including the 1.6-liter direct injection engine, 6-speed DSK and the complete electric equipment.

Hyundai designs a 'coupe-like' sedan from it, while the Kia people offer a crossover model. The fact that this does not mean very much, show the dimensions: The Niro is just 8.5 cm higher, but 11.5 cm shorter than the Ioniq. The space difference is supposed to be not very large.

Disadvantage for the Niro: its drag coefficient is with 0.29 significantly worse compared to the 0.24 of the Ioniq. The larger cross-sectional area doesn't help, in fact rather the opposite. Additionally: The Ioniq although as a saving hybrid not just trained on speed, may dominate the Niro on the highway.

The curb weight of the Kia may be higher than that of the Hyundai (1.380 kg), because latter has more body parts made of aluminum e.g. the tailgate. After all, he may pull a braked trailer of 1300 kg, not bad for a hybrid car. And one more advantage over the Hyundai: Kia offers seven rather than five years warranty standard. The design studios in California and Korea have worked together successfully.

The Niro will make its way. Also for this model, a plug-in hybrid is announced. It is to suspect that they thus will share Hyundai's pure electric model, too. Technically very interesting now is the electric motor. Shared by two sister companies it has 'only' 32 kW (44 hp), but 170 Nm, significantly more than the combustion engine. So when accelerating the car is certainly not a lame duck. 02/16