Hyundai Kona N could go electric: High-riding hot hatch rival will ditch petrol power but electric car version to battle Tesla Model Y, Polestar 2 and Volkswagen Tiguan R is possible

Rumours of the demise of the Hyundai Kona N may have been exaggerated.

In late 2022 Hyundai N chief architect, Albert Biermann, appeared to close the door on the Kona N seeing a second-generation when he confirmed a new petrol-powered version wouldn't be engineered and dismissed the idea of an electric model.

However, two key Hyundai executives have re-opened the door, indicating that a high-performance version of this new-generation Kona, specifically a Kona N version, is possible and it would use an electric powertrain.

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Simon Park, Head of EV Strategy for Hyundai, and Se Hyuk Park, Head of Compact Vehicle Project Management, met with Australian media at the recent global presentation of the new Kona and explained the thinking behind their decision to only offer the electric version as a single-motor, front-wheel drive variant.

This move runs counter to many brand's strategies for electric vehicles, which is to promote the performance credentials of electric cars and not just the possible environmental upside. This is typically showcased in high-performance, dual-motor variants such as Hyundai's own Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV GT-Line and GT.

However, Park explained efficiency was Hyundai's key goal for the new Kona Electric, along with maintaining petrol and hybrid options for the diverse needs of the global market; even if that upsets Australian customers who want performance electric cars.

"I can understand the concern of Australian buyers," Park said. "When we started the project for the all-new Kona we did research on the global market and we needed to embrace some more priorities, so we decided to develop all these powertrains - ICE, hybrid, EV - because there will be markets that want these powertrains. So regarding the Kona N model, we developed the Kona N ICE in the previous model and now we are doing a lot of research in the area of electrification because we need to develop the EV N Line."

He added, the company did look into a dual-motor option for the Kona but has initially decided against it to keep costs down.

"The amount of battery is almost the same as the previous one," Park explained. "Through the better energy efficiency technologies we expect the new Kona will have better AER (all electric range) performance. We actually thought about adapting the dual-motor function to Kona but decided to stick to the single-motor to provide the customers a more reasonable price in the B-segment."

His colleague, Se Hyuk Park, said that the opportunity remains to introduce an all-wheel drive version of the Kona Electric, which could wear an N badge, if the market demand increases.

"However, we'll see how the market moves and if we have to work on a high-performance vehicle for Kona it would be electrification," Se Hyuk Park said. "Right now we're not sure [how] to implement rear-wheel drive, we already thought about it and the market needs are quite low so far. But we'll see after we launch the vehicle if the customer expectation is getting higher, then we are very capable of doing a rear-wheel motor in future."