- Hyundai’s new DK Edition take on the Ioniq 5 N promises even more slide-y fun
- Plus: the brand is expanding availability of its affordable Inster EV to Japan
- Don’t look for either car in North American showrooms—at least not yet
Hyundai used this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon to talk up a couple of EVs, and the pair couldn’t be more different if they tried. One is a subcompact electric car called the Inster, priced at ¥2.85 million, which is roughly CAD$26,000 at today’s exchange rates. The other is an extra-tasty-drifty variant of the hot Ioniq 5 N, tuned by the Drift King himself.
We’ll start with the latter, along with the information that DK was not just a character invented for the third Fast & Furious instalment. The name refers to, in fact, Keiichi Tsuchiya, a professional driver who’s been on this planet for nearly seven decades, spending much of that time sliding sideways in a car. In addition to a storied racing career, he served as a stunt driver and consultant in film, not to mention he’s literally the person on whom Initial D is based.
This new DK Edition of the Ioniq 5 N, a car which already makes it so incredibly easy to drift that it makes even your ham-fisted author look good on track, features better brakes and a lowered suspension in addition to visual gear like 21-inch wheels and a custom paint that trades the traditional N colours for green. There’s also the presence of An Wing.
The special trim was fettled in collaboration with Tsuchiya-san and is, as yet, reserved for sale solely in Korea and Japan. How much cheddar the DK trim might add to the N’s sticker price – which is already about $80,000 here in Canada – is unknown.
On the other end of the spectrum, Hyundai also showed off the Inster, a small EV which, for reference, is bigger than a Fiat 500e, but not by much. The model is already on sale in Europe, equipped with either a 42- or 49-kWh battery depending on trim, which lets it provide an estimated 327 or 370 km of range, respectively.
Plans always existed to market the Inster in the Asia-Pacific market, but that region’s sales in such segments tend to be ruled by local giants. Hyundai’s hoping a new lower price in Japan – that new CDN$26,000 quoted above is quite the drop from the CDN$38,000 we’d heard back in June 2024 – will let it take on way-affordable Chinese rivals and break into the space in a big way.
We don’t expect to either to come to Canadian shores any time soon, but if we could get at least one of these over here, which would you prefer? If given the choice, would you ask Hyundai to introduce the Inster to our winters; or to slide the DK into our market?