Creta Electric Review: Hyundai's Best-Seller Goes Electric

Hyundai’s best-seller has another flavour now! The company’s bestselling model now goes electric – as it was expected to do. The Ocean blue paint shade is exclusive to the EV and there are some new bits inside too. But let’s get to performance right up top.

Hyundai Creta Electric Review: Performance

The basic thing you want to know from me right up front. Is it good? The simple answer to that is yes, and I'll explain why I'm saying that, and why I'm saying it like this. Well, it's because it feels exactly like a Creta.
It's just what people will find really comfortable, really familiar and really easy, and from that perspective, yeah, it is good. I'll explain what I mean about that in just a second. Let me tell you why that's also not good or potentially isn't. And that's because when you get used to driving EVs, you have a certain expectation from an electric, which is very different to how an ICE car will behave. That's something that I almost feel is lacking on this one. What I mean is, the way you can get instant torque and acceleration, and the way you can get that completely different electric feel, those things are sort of gone here. Now, is it intentional? Well, you could argue that the idea was to make it really familiar and very Creta-like. If that was the brief, the engineers have met it amply. But otherwise, it does feel like an electrified version of an ICE car, therefore, does that mean it's forced? That's what's nagging me. 

The Creta Electric gets two battery pack options, and two powertrain options also. I have the larger battery top spec. It has a 51.4 kWh battery with 473 km of claimed range. The smaller 42 kWh battery has 390 km of driving range.

So the good EV bits - Regen -  works really well. It's been done in the same way that we've been used to, especially from Hyundai cars or EVs. So, i-pedal or a single pedal driving can adjust all that with these uh paddle shifters. It does work quite well and I think it's been also done smartly to maximize range. So you actually keep picking up even on highway kind of driving. You keep picking up really good amount of power through regen and yeah, that's great because at the end of the day on an EV, that's the thing that gets you anxious. Besides that, when I said that, you know, it's not sporty, etc, it doesn't mean that it isn't fast, it can quickly execute some of those manoeuvres like a quick overtake on the highway, etc, and it also goes up to pretty high speeds. But yeah, it's just that it's not instant. It's not punchy, like you do find on some other electrics.

The power output of the motor varies from 169 bhp on the larger battery variant to 133 bhp on the other one. The torque is a pretty generous 255 Nm. Hyundai claims 0-100 kmph is done in 7.9 seconds. 

The drive mode adjustment happens from this little dial over here and there's something you're used to Eco, Normal and Sport. They are evidently different. On the Eco, you do get that sense of the car’s sort of a sort of holding back a little on the Normal, you don't and then, of course, Sport, it goes a little bit faster. But I have to say even in Eco, if you want to quickly do those little overtakes that I was talking about, it can happen. I'm in Eco right now and I should be able to show you that in five four three two one.

Hyundai Creta Electric Review: Ride & Handling

Now the power may well be kinda like an EV, but the ride is quintessential Creta. Let me explain. All right, so I promised you, I'll explain what I meant by the good bits of being a Creta, so here goes. The overall setup of the car is just like the Creta. I mean, that's a car that's always been about trying to balance out so many customer needs. It's very comfortable. It feels really plush. That's something you pick up on this absolutely right away.
And that's a good thing, like I was saying, because it means that though the overall set-up, the tuning, everything, is directed more towards comfort, it's not very sporty, it's not really hard, and it's not really stiff. So even the way the suspension has been done, the way you glide over these little broken or uneven road surfaces, small potholes, it's all really comfortable. It's almost comforting to know that it has that exact character and that having that battery on the floor doesn't really change that.

Ride is good in the back too. Handling could be sharper but won’t disappoint. The steering though has a slightly floaty feel, and is just too soft for my liking. It's good that the car has ADAS. It works quite well for the most part, can be a bit patchy, two times I felt like the collision avoidance didn't sort of immediately catch on to a few things, but otherwise lane-keep and things like that they work really well.

Hyundai Creta Electric Review: Battery & Range

I have to say that when I was saying that you know the car doesn't feel very sporty, the good news on that side is that even the way the battery management seems to have been done is sort of to maximize range because I have now driven the car for, well, more than about 80-odd kilometres already. And you can see that the battery doesn't be quite at that rate, even though I've been driving on the highway, the regen really keeps picking up a lot of power and that's a good thing, so from and that's a good thing from the perspective of range anxiety, therefore, I think this has been smartly done. So the claimed range, it should kind of be very close to what you actually get for the most part.

So that means you should get around 430-450 kms on the larger battery variant and around 340-355 kms on the smaller one. 

Hyundai Creta Electric Review: Design

There aren’t huge differentiations between the regular Creta and the electric, so styling-wise, everything remains very similar. This blue is very specific to the EV though and they call it Ocean Blue. You have it in matte and in glossy. And you also have a two-tone version. Two-tone is also available in white. Otherwise, overall there are eight monotone colours. Now the styling changes, between the two cars. You have this whole pixel strategy that’s playing out, especially on the IONIQ range and that’s been emphasised here. You do see pixels on the regular car as well like you see the little headlamp treatment here, those little squares on the little pattern inside, it’s all pixels but like I said it gets pronounced. 

You get these squares here, the little pixels, there are pixels down here, pixels inside the little glassy element as well and there’s a special pixel which has a little plug on it which allows you to open this. That’s of course the hatch for charging the car. Now that is a little plasticky feeling, I don’t know why that is. But what’s nice about this, is that of course you have AC and DC options and you also have this LED light ring which kind of tells you the state of what’s happening. So when you start charging it turns green, if there’s a problem with your charger, it goes red. And then you’ve got these four pixels. Right now you can only see three are lit. That shows you the state of charge, about 75 per cent of the charge is still on this car. That is a nice thing to have I think. There are pixels in the back as well. Again, the ones in the taillights, that’s something you saw on the Creta facelift already but again there are pixels down here and then these three are the reverse lights that are also part of that pixel pattern. On the whole, the car looks attractive, it looks smart. You do have these opening flaps down here which are for cooling. Otherwise, they are shut for the most part for aerodynamics and that’s the last thing I wanna talk about.

EV-specific low-resistance tyres and the aero pattern on the alloy wheels, it's all very nice. I talked about those flaps in the front as well, but this is the part that I don't understand. This A-pillar has this weird notch. I mean, I can almost put my fingers completely inside. That can't be good for aero now, even if it's just a fraction of a difference, it is a difference. On EVs, you usually find all these gaps get filled up.
Why hasn't that been done here on the Creta Electric?

Hyundai Creta Electric Review: Interior

Let’s take the party indoors, now? Shall we? Well, just like the outside is so much like the regular Creta, the inside is to the layout is very similar. You've got the dual screen set up. The steering wheel is the one thing that's immediately different. It's a different styling and you've got the four dots, Morse Code for H, which is what you've seen on all the electrics. Also, the gear shifter, it isn't in the centre console. It's this little twisty gear shift here that's installed onto the steering column. That's again, something we are seeing, not just on every new EV from Hyundai, but going forward, I think most Hyundais, that's what's gonna happen. Volkswagen’s doing something similar as well.
Climate control system, it's, again, all of this is just very familiar. You've got the wireless phone charger, and then you've got the seat cooling with the ventilation buttons up here. Nice and big and chunky. Drive mode button. We're talking about it earlier, a little bit of ambient light that's been embedded in here. Bose sound system on the top end and overall, there's a nice modern feel to this cabin. You’ve of course got the EV-specific displays that do pop up on this screen as well as this one. 
So when everything is so modern, I really wonder why the key is as if it's from, I don't know, 20 years ago.

Thankfully most of the cabin and tech makes up for that in spades. And of course, the Creta Electric comes with connected car tech with the Hyundai Bluelink, no surprises there… and since it is an EV, you do get specific EV graphics like square theme in blue for the virtual cluster which keeps showing you the range and special graphics in the touchscreen that shows you lots of data with respect to the battery. Nice. 

Hyundai Creta Electric Review: Safety

And then you’ve the standard safety features, six airbags, hill descent control, hill assist control, all-wheel disc brakes, electric parking brake and even a stronger body structure. But no crash test results just yet.

And then you’ve also had multiple ADAS features too. The usual ones, like forward collision assist, lane keeping assist, lane departure, blind spot. Most of it, I’ve already talked about earlier. 

Hyundai Creta Electric Review: Rear Seat

The back seat now. The sense of space is decent, and the floor is a little bit raised compared to the regular Creta, but you know what, you don't really feel that difference. It's not so pronounced that it becomes uncomfortable. This little hump here in the middle, the transmission tunnel is also gone and so it's just a very tiny bump as compared to the regular one. The floor mats, though I have to say, are kind of retro and kind of cool. They have that little bit of a teal or aqua edge. You also see a little light blue edging on the seats, the little piping and the stitching. All of that is part of this package, which is nice. The other thing that is different is the seat, it's a lot more comfortable, and it's plumper as well, both at the back and down here, a little more under-thigh support also. So that's much nicer. 

You do get the drop-down armrest. There is no charger or anything in here.
It would have been nice to have a wireless charger, but maybe I'm asking for too much. Few other comfort bits, stuff like this is something people have always liked, so they will like it, especially if they are being chauffeur driven and speaking of being chauffeur driven, you’ve got this carry over from the Alcazar, the Alcy. You’ve also got a little cupholder that comes out on the side so if you don’t wanna use this one, you can use that one. And speaking of being chauffeur-driven, you can also do this. Both recline the seat forward and move it forward. Again, a carryover from the Alcy, which is a nice one because it gives you a lot of space back here. To really be chauffeur-driven. You can, of course, charge your phone with the two USB points down there, and rear AC vents, and it's not so bad back here.

Hyundai Creta Electric Review: Verdict

Clearly Hyundai feels a lot of Creta Electric buyers would be in the back seat. But I feel an equal number if not more will also like the drive. So it has been a good enough balancing act to achieve decent performance, good comfort great efficiency, safety, and a lot of the expected tech.

From one car, the compact electric SUV segment has gone to 4 in a matter of a year. It’s not easy pickings too given that price of all the cars are pretty much aggressive and we expect nothing less from Hyundai because the Creta EV does not match the flamboyance of design when compared to the BE 6 and the Curvv, there’s a lot in terms of tech. It’s a tough call for buyers then, and for us too but we’ll have an answer for you when we compare them all together.