The Hyundai Ioniq 5 Is Cooking Again
- Hyundai and Kia are leaning more on hybrids than ever before.
- Electrified models accounted for a third of Hyundai sales last month.
- The Ioniq 5 continues to lead Hyundai’s EV offensive.
Hyundai and Kia set new U.S. sales records last month, powered largely by their gas and hybrid lineups. With the federal EV tax credit now gone, fully electric models continued to witness lower sales, but the Ioniq 5 is proving to be the exception, with its sales rebounding sharply last month.
Hyundai sold 65,677 units in February, a 6% year-over-year increase and a new monthly record for the brand. Roughly a third of those sales—22,357 units—came from electrified models, a category that spans hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and fully electric vehicles. That figure represents a 56% jump in electrified sales, driven primarily by hybrid trims of the Sonata, Santa Fe, Tucson, and Elantra. Hybrids have been a bright spot for Hyundai for months, and that trend is showing no signs of slowing down.
2025 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid
Photo by: Kevin Williams/InsideEVs
The bigger story, though, is the Ioniq 5. Hyundai sold 3,239 units of the electric crossover last month, marking a 33% year-over-year increase. That’s its strongest performance in the last five months. It’s less than half the number of Ioniq 5s that Hyundai moved in September, the final month of the EV tax credit. But it’s also twice as many as were sold in October, when EV sales across the board crashed due demand that was pulled forward by the tax credit’s expiration date.
The day after the tax credit ended, Hyundai slashed the starting price of the Ioniq 5 by up to $9,800, which certainly helped matters.
Qualified buyers can also access 0% APR financing, competitive lease rates, and dealer discounts. But the Ioniq 5’s momentum isn’t being shared equally across the EV lineup. Hyundai sold just 229 units of the Ioniq 6 and 505 units of the Ioniq 9 in February, modest numbers by any measure.
Photo by: Patrick George
Kia, for its part, also set a February U.S. sales record, with 66,005 units sold, a 4% year-over-year gain. Hybrid sales surged 53%, though Kia doesn’t break out figures by individual nameplate. Its EV sales, however, continued to suffer. Kia sold only 600 units of the EV6 and 819 units of the EV9 last month.
Taken together, the two brands are starting to look a lot like Toyota in their sales composition. Hybrids are carrying an ever-larger share of the pie while EVs remain an evolving story.
That’s not a bad place to be. Both Hyundai and Kia now offer hybrid trims across their core lineups and maintain one of the strongest EV lineups in the market. The question is now whether the Ioniq 5’s February sales rebound is a signal that organic EV demand is bouncing back in a post-tax-credit world—or simply a one-month anomaly.
Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com
