2025 Hyundai IONIQ 9 renamed and delayed to early next year

Hyundai’s first three-row electric SUV will wear a $100,000-plus starting price tag and undergo a name change to IONIQ 9 – from IONIQ 7 – before its delayed Australian launch in early 2025.

The name change is being reported as fact by the authoritative Korean Car Blog and has also been acknowledged without being officially confirmed by Hyundai Motor Company Australia.

Hyundai’s largest ever EV was originally due on sale here in the second half of 2024. The rescheduled local introduction is a reflection of how late production will commence in Korea this year.

Rather than launch in the holiday season, HMCA has elected to hold off until early 2025.

The pricing was tacitly admitted by HMCA COO John Kett when he explained how the IONIQ 9 will fit into the Korean brand’s SUV model range.

“In every SUV segment we will have ICE, hybrid and an EV, and the step-up within that segment and across that segment – if you just look at price-pointing – would appear to be fair, as opposed to only looking at a car [IONIQ 9] that will be $100,000-plus,” he told carsales.

The big new IONIQ 9 will go on sale in a similar timeframe to the pint-size Inster electric SUV at the other end of Hyundai’s EV line-up.

But while that four-seat SUV is being touted as a sub-$40,000 EV price-leader for Hyundai in Australia, the seven-seat IONIQ 9 will potentially be the most expensive model the Korean brand has ever sold in Australia, topping the smaller IONIQ 5 N high-performance SUV ($111,000 plus on-road costs).

That has prompted Kett to be very cautious about sales expectations.

“We do recognise it is tougher up there,” he said. “I think in our mind we have to think through really carefully.

“We are not bullish enough to come out and say we are going to smash this out of the park. I think you need to be very discerning in that segment.

“We have seen the styling of ours. It is a unique styling so it will stand in the marketplace and will be seen as attractive.”

The IONIQ 9 shares its E-GMP EV architecture with sister brand Kia’s three-row electric SUV, the EV9, which is priced between $97,000 and $121,000 plus ORCs.

The EV9 has struggled for sales success, with just 313 examples registered in Australia in the first six months of 2024.

“We are still reviewing that, it is a tough segment,” admitted Kett when asked if the EV9’s sales performance had provided learnings for IONIQ 9.

“I don’t know how we are going to go.

“We have a lot of time to think our way through it. There are a lot of early movers in that price point; what did they get right what didn’t they get right and what aspiration do we need on that car?”

Kett made the point that Hyundai has a comprehensive SUV model range that currently starts with the Venue and escalates in price through the Kona, Tucson, Santa Fe and IONIQ 5 to the large Palisade, which is currently its most expensive combustion-powered SUV, priced as high as $80,990 plus on-road costs.

That pricing gap will undoubtedly close in 2025 when a new Palisade arrives with hybrid power.

“So the price-point step-up to an all-EV large SUV when you come off a Palisade may not appear as being as expensive as just being off a hybrid Santa Fe or petrol Santa Fe because Palisade sits in the middle,” Kett said.

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