New Hyundai IONIQ Sales Record Set In South Korea — 1,425 Units Sold In November (1,085 EVs + 345 Hybrids)

The Hyundai IONIQ is already selling very well in its home market of South Korea, with a total of 1,425 units being sold during the month of November.

That 1,425 relates to all variants of the Hyundai IONIQ — not only the all-electric (EV) one, but also the hybrid version. The exact sales split for November 2016 was: 1,085 IONIQ EVs and 345 IONIQ hybrids.

That sales split is particularly interesting, as the EV version is actually around €10,000 more expensive than the hybrid but it’s still selling far better. Presumably, this is because of its extremely high efficiency?

Push EVs provides more: “Hyundai still expects to sell more IONIQ from the hybrid variant than the electric and priced them accordingly. … While the hybrid variant has the Toyota hybrids as main competitors, the electric version is the uncontested efficiency champion. No other electric car gets close to its efficiency figures. The Hyundai IONIQ Electric’s unmatched efficiency means very low running costs and makes it a great option for car sharing services. This is what’s happening now with many car sharing services all over the world choosing this electric car for their fleet.”

On that note, as we reported previously, there are now a number of Hyundai IONIQ EVs operating as part of WaiveCar’s “free” carsharing service in Los Angeles, so anyone in that area wanting to get an idea of what the car is like can already go do so.

The Push EVs coverage also speculated that the success of the IONIQ EV may push Toyota to speed up the release of an all-electric Prius — an interesting idea, especially since the company is likely not very happy about having its place at the top of the fuel economy equivalent pyramid taken away (especially after only having it again for a brief period of time).

Hard to say what will happen with Toyota, but it definitely does seem to be making a major course correction right now.