2023 Hyundai Seven concept revealed: price, specs and release date

On sale: 2023 | Price from: £55,000 (est)

There’s nothing worse than a spoiled surprise, like when someone blurts out what your birthday present is before you've unwrapped it. A good concept car achieves the opposite, whetting your appetite for the real thing – and that's what this dramatic Hyundai Seven is designed to do. It previews the fully-electric Hyundai Ioniq 7, due out in a couple of years.

Unveiled at the Los Angeles AutoMobility show, the Seven features some styling traits that we’ve already seen on the Hyundai Ioniq 5 electric car, but scaled up to the form of a large SUV. The resulting retro-futuristic look includes a distinctive front end with pixel-styled LED headlights. Around the back, there’s a huge glass tailgate that sits above a full-width LED light bar. 

A key focus with the Seven concept is autonomous driving tech, which has heavily influenced the interior, with front seats that can swivel to face those in the rear rather than the road ahead. The back doors open rearwards so there's no fixed pillar between the front and rear doors to hinder access – although the finished Ioniq 7 is likely to revert to conventional doors and a traditional seven-seat layout. 

The front and rear axles are 3.2m apart on the concept, which should make for generous passenger space if the production car matches that. For comparison, the South Korean manufacturer's largest current car, the Hyundai Santa Fe, has 2.8m between its axles, and the Tesla Model X has 3.0m.

As well as taking inspiration from the Ioniq 5 for its looks, the production Ioniq 7 will be closely related to that car under the skin.

It will have two electric motors (one powering the front wheels and the other the rears) and a battery capacity of approximately 73kWh, which Hyundai claims will give it a range of more than 300 miles between charges. Versions of the BMW iX, Ford Mustang Mach-E and Jaguar I-Pace with similar battery capacities manage 257 miles, 273 miles and 292 miles respectively.

Charging speeds of up to 350kW will be possible, meaning that a 10-80% charge can take as little as 20 minutes.

The production Ioniq 7 will be positioned above the existing Ioniq 5 hatchback and the upcoming Ioniq 6 saloon in Hyundai’s line-up, and it's expected to cost from around £55,000. That would make it significantly cheaper than the iX and I-Pace, and a similar price to the smaller Mustang Mach-E.

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