It makes sense for Hyundai's family hauling EV to resemble its cousin, like the Palisade and Telluride are closely related

Remember the Seven Concept? Hyundai debuted a large, boxy three-row concept with some out of this world styling at last year’s LA Auto Show. Now, our friend Yeng sent in some shots of what could be the nascent stages of the production 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 7. As you can see, there’s a heavy amount of camouflage obscuring the car’s extremities, so it’s difficult to tell exactly what this SUV is. There are some telltale signs, though — and I’ll get to those in a moment.

First up, let’s recap what we know about Hyundai’s upcoming SUV. The South Korean automaker plans to roll out two new EVs in the coming years, after launching its Ioniq 5 hatchback under the revamped electric sub-brand. Next up is the imaginatively named Ioniq 6 sedan, which Roman recently experienced in Busan. The Ioniq 7, for its part, should launch for the 2024 model year, and will offer an option for families looking for a larger family hauler. As Hyundai tends to move nearly in lockstep with sister brand Kia, this will also be an alternative to the Kia EV9 that we’ve seen in much greater detail at this point.

Hyundai has launched a Seven concept, and provided a few details about the production car’s capabilities. When it does launch, Hyundai claims its three-row SUV will manage 10% to 80% state-of-charge in 20 minutes using a 350 kW DC fast charger. We expect the Ioniq 7 to pack an appropriately large battery to move this much mass, so having greater fast-charging capability is critical. That is, provided you live somewhere with 350 kW-capable fast charging.

At the moment, we don’t have too much more technical information for the time being. The Seven concept, for what it’s worth, rides on a long 126-inch wheelbase, and uses the e-GMP platform like the existing Ioniq models.

Naturally, the chunky camouflage hides some of the car’s finer details by design. Even with what’s here, though, there are some potential clues. The A-pillars and roofline — the only parts of the car that aren’t heavily camouflaged — more or less match the Kia EV9. That’s a similar styling trait between the Kia Telluride and Hyundai Palisade: Both cars have different front and rear ends, but the pillars and the leading part of the roofline as well as the mirror placement are virtually identical.

This car differs from the Kia EV9, though, once you get back to the C-pillar. This prototype has a much thicker pillar separating the rear windows, which is another trait that separates the Hyundai Palisade from the Kia Telluride. Another subtle difference seems to be with the quarter glass on the front passenger door. Again, the Kia EV9 does not have feature — instead using a piece of black plastic trim behind the side mirrors.

I honed in on a small vertical slat below the headlights, as well as the air intake. Now, parts or all of this front clip could be completely fake — I’m definitely not convinced those headlights are production-spec, for example. But, I don’t think there’s a huge amount of extra plastic hanging on the front end because you can see the car’s parking sensors through a few holes in the heavy black camouflage. That means the bits behind it should represent the shape of the vehicle’s body, and probably won’t change between now and the production model.

Hyundai obviously went to great length to conceal the faux-grille here, so unfortunately we can’t use that to clue us in to this car’s identity as the Ioniq 7.

Yeng also caught a glimpse of the interior, and…well, I was disappointed at first. Just a couple seats — no view of the center console, dashboard, steering wheel or gauge cluster. Yeah, there’s not really too much to see here. Then I spotted that logo on the window glass — a feature I enlarged (and flipped) in the image above. That Hyundai logo indeed offered another strong clue.

Here’s another thing about the Kia EV9. Even on the “official” photos the automaker published last month. Even on the prototypes, the window glass has the Kia logo. Another few interior clues come from Korean Car Blog, which has published spy shots of the EV9. You’ll have to click that link to check them out, as we do not have permission to use their photos.

In short, the seats have a fairly similar design. However, the seat bottoms are a bit different, as are the backrests at shoulder level. Looking over on the driver’s side door panel of our prototype shown above, the upper side of the door trim and the door handle shape/placement look different. You can really see the difference when you look at the EV9’s passenger side door panel, as shown on KCB. Again, the glass is branded “Kia” rather than with the Hyundai logo. One more small note: Our Hyundai Ioniq 7 prototype has tweeters on the A-pillars, while the EV9 does not.

Skipping back to the exterior for a moment, Kia used identical camouflage on their EV9 to what we see above. Even through that, though, you can make out the EV9’s headlight signature. The hood line is also slightly different, and you can see that where it meets the A-pillar on each of the cars.

Even with all that analysis, there are a few questions that linger in my mind over these spy shots. Will the Hyundai Ioniq 7 mirror the EV9 as closely as the Telluride/Palisade pair? The sister brands have pulled apart some way in their EV designs, with the Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 being two great examples. They’re on the same platform, but the bodies are completely different. This car also looks markedly different from the Seven concept. Kia, for its part, stayed pretty true to their Concept EV9‘s vision, at least on the outside.

On the other hand, you could argue Hyundai’s concept is far more fanciful, with the swooping roofline and rear fascia, to say nothing of its lounge concept interior. We know those sorts of features aren’t making it into any near-term production vehicles. The low-mounted taillights on the prototype shown above makes me think that feature may carry through, though.

What do you guys think? The camouflage is certainly frustrating, though hopefully we’ll see better shots of both Kia and Hyundai’s upcoming large SUVs where we’ll be able to analyze the design with more certainty.

According to Hyundai’s early roadmap, we should see a production version of the Hyundai Ioniq 7 by early 2024.