Enlarge / Streamlined aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s were an inspiration for the Hyundai Ioniq 6. (credit: Hyundai)

The physical unveiling of the Hyundai Prophecy concept car was an early casualty of COVID, originally scheduled for the hastily canceled 2020 Geneva auto show . That didn't stop it from blowing my socks off once Hyundai sent some images over the Internet, however. At the time, I didn't think the Korean automaker would put the concept—which I described as the result of "a transporter accident involving a Mercedes CLS and a Tesla Model 3"—into production.

Obviously, I was being a fool because just as the Hyundai 45 concept morphed into the excellent Ioniq 5 crossover, the Prophecy has been translated into production as the Ioniq 6 sedan. Like the Ioniq 5, the Ioniq 6 uses Hyundai's new E-GMP platform for 800 V vehicles , but importantly, it's actually smaller (with a 2-inch/50-mm shorter wheelbase) and will be cheaper than the angular Ioniq 5. (Yes, this still confuses me, because 6 is more than 5, so one expects a bigger, more expensive car, plus the Ioniq 7 is going to be a large seven-seater electric SUV , due next year.)

The most notable change from the concept is the Ioniq 6's extra height, an unavoidable consequence of having to package a 6-inch (150 mm) slab of lithium-ion batteries under the cabin's floor. I asked Hyundai design chief Sangyup Lee if he had been tempted to stretch the production car's wheelbase to maintain the concept's proportions.