Electric Hyundai 45 and Electric Hyundai Prophecy Concepts ARE heading for production

Hyundai’s two recent electric concepts – the 45 and the Prophecy – weren’t just concepts but will arrive as Hyundai production models.

When you see a car concept, it’s usually pretty clear from the start whether you’re looking at a fantasy ‘Look what we could do if we wanted to‘ flight of fantasy and designer hope for a more interesting future, or a car which looks production-ready bar the removal of a few concept fripperies.

Both of Hyundai’s recent electric concepts – the Hyundai 45 and the Hyundai Prophecy – fell in to the former, with the 45 a 21st century electric SUV inspired by Hyundai’s first ‘Pony’ car and the Hyundai Prophecy looking like it could have come out of a Porsche designer’s CAD.

But it seems, thanks to an Auto Express interview with Hyundai’s Head of Global Design, SangYup Lee, that our expectations for the 45 and Prophecy are wrong. They are heading for production.

Despite the 45 and Prophecy having very diverse design language, and looking little like current Hyundais, it seems that’s at the core of the future for Hyundai, with each of their models differentiated in design rather than different sized versions of the same look.

Both cars will be built on Hyundai’s new E-GMP Platform for EVs, and the ‘family’ look will be created by using similar ‘Pixel Lamp’ lights, with the Hyundai 45 arriving later this year in production guise, and the Hyundai Prophecy in 2021.

Lee said:

Our cars will be more like a chess board where you have a King, Queen, Bishop, Knight. They all look different and function differently but when they’re together they come as one team.This is what the Hyundai look is all about – diversifying our design to fulfill our customer’s lifestyle.

Which all sounds very interesting, although there’s no real idea yet of what sort of power and performance the 45 and Prophecy will have.