Photos of a heavily cladded all-electric SUV, apparently the Ioniq 5, have been made in South Korea, leading CarBuzz to assume that Hyundai started working on a mid-life refresh despite it being just two years old.
Aside from the added roof rails, the two images reveal next to nothing. If anything, the car could be an early prototype or a test mule harboring a new powertrain inside an old body.
CarBuzz believes that some of the design features of the high-end Ioniq 5 N model revealed not long ago will later make it onto the mass market. The stiffer body structure and optimized dashboard layout in particular can be expected to become standard across the entire range. The N version also packs an 84-kWh battery, so that one may go on sale, too.
Considering that the standard Ioniq 5 model (see the rest of the gallery and the video) is still relatively fresh, we would not expect the update to be released before 2024.