Hyundai has today released its first teaser image of the company’s futuristic plug-in hybrid sedan, to be known as i-Flow.
The vehicle, believed to be based closely on sister company Kia’s Ray plug-in hybrid concept (as seen on CarAdvice last week), also appears to share some familiar design cues with the Lotus Elise (up front) and BMW 6 Series (up back).
The i-flow was designed at the same place as the Hyundai ix35, at the company’s European design headquarters in Rüsselsheim, Germany. As a result it follows the same ‘fluidic sculpture’ principles of all new Hyundai cars, and is expected to attract a great deal of attention.
Hyundai says it’s called the i-flow to showcase its exceptionally aerodynamic shape, furthermore it retains the ‘i’ prefix which will soon be seen across the majority of the Hyundai line-up.
Although it’s unlikely we will see these technologies in their current form in the production version, the i-flow concept makes use of innovative lightweight materials and solar cells.
The reason for the solar panels is Hyundai’s commitment to environmentally-sensitive technologies as part its Blue DriveTM eco-focused program.
We have already seen the Hyundai ix35 and this year the Korean company will launch the Hyundai i20 and Hyundai i45 in Australia.
TOYota with the Camry doesn’t stand a chance if this gets released.
A Lotus front but allows you to get in without being a contortionist or a midget = Nice!
Obviously it won’t handle like one, but it’ll be much better than the Camry!
I really like the concept that Audi had with an individual motor for each wheel, nice and torquey. Hopefully this will follow suit……
Regards
Whitbomb07
Settle Whitbomb, its still in concept phase by the looks of it.
Concepts seldom look like the production and some features may not even make final production. They’re getting closer to resembling original concepts now but the restrictions generally come from tooling and production line ability. To make it look like like the above would mean it’s probably going to be 2x the cost of a Hybrid Camry.
I hope they release something aggressive that does show up the Camry for the bland design it is but I can’t see it coming out looking any thing close to the above.
Here’s hoping though ;)
That will be your Next gen i40, they’ll clean it up a little of course, but dont expect them to stray more than 30% away from this design.
I agree with you :)
look at the ix-onic concept >>> ix35
:P