Hyundai's new EV platform revealed; to feature in 23 cars by 2025

KUALA LUMPUR: Electric vehicles have now become an integral part of the auto family, much like the conventional gasoline and diesel-run cars. Automakers, be it luxury or mass-market, are concentrating their energy and finances towards EV development. And with time engineers have come to the realisation that shoving EV parts in platforms built from conventional cars won't do any good and ultimately compromise with the car's performance and efficiency. With this in mind, Hyundai has announced its latest EV-only platform, called E-GMP.

The said modular platform will serve as the base of future EVs coming from Hyundai and Kia, starting from 2021. Further, Hyundai has announced to manufacture 23 battery EVs by 2025. The first car to benefit from the E-GMP platform will be the Hyundai Ioniq 5 that until now has only been seen in concept form. Followed by other Ioniq and Genesis EVs.

Lucid and Tesla are among the automakers that design their own motors for the sake of efficiency. And now Hyundai is on the same path instead of using off-the-shelf parts they type of efficiencies found in EV-centric manufactures.

Here are a few key highlights of the E-GMP platform -

• The main component of this platform is a battery pack and an all-in-one transmission, motor, and inverter, designed and developed by Hyundai
• The said all-in-one unit has helped maximises motor speed by to 70 percent (compared to the existing small motors) and is the world’s first mass-produced integrated drive axle (IDA)
• By default, the E-GMP platform is designed to be rear-wheel drive, however, it can be fitted with a front electric motor for all-wheel drive
• With this new platform, Hyundai claims to offer up to 600 hp of power, it'll show the same next year with a high-performance vehicle

• Platform's inverter power module uses silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors instead of conventional silicon (Si)-based semiconductors, leading to 5 percent increase in range
• The E-GMP platform supports bi-directional charging, meaning that the EV will be able to discharge its energy from its battery back to the grid/house that supports the same feature
• 3.5 kW of power is supplied by the vehicle-to-load function that Hyundai says is enough to turn-on a 55-inch TV for 24 hours and a mid-size air-con system
• Thanks to the 800-volt battery architecture that supports a 350 kW of charging speed, EVs based on this platform will charge 80 percent in just 18 minutes
• Hyundai claims a range to 499 km for E-GMP based EVs on WLTP scale
• Models based on the concerned platform will be capable of touching 100 kmph mark under 3.5 seconds and attain a top speed of 260 kmph

• Though we are unaware about the platform's battery sizes or range of battery-pack sizes, we do know that the batteries will sit under the cabin floor and the EVs will have long wheelbase allowing more cabin and cargo space
• The EVs based on E-GMP will answer several safety considerations by effectively distributing and absorbing collision energy of an impact and minimising the energy going to the occupants and battery
• 'Battery-Penetrative' mounting method has been employed by the engineers that maximise the batter-to-floor connection, leading to improved physical stability, and vehicle's NVH level

We now wait to see the first Hyundai EV that comes employed with the new E-GMP platform. Hope it comes out soon.

Also Read: GM to introduce 30 EVs by 2025, here's how