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When Munro & Associates disassembled the Hyundai Ioniq 5’s center console, they expected a straightforward teardown job. What they found instead was a cautionary tale in overengineering.
Led by Senior Consulting Engineer Tyler Schlink, with commentary from CEO Sandy Munro, the teardown uncovered a staggering number of components, design inefficiencies, and violations of lean manufacturing principles. Despite its clean exterior and modest functionality—a sliding feature across 14 adjustable positions—the Ioniq 5’s center console comprises hundreds of parts, excessive fasteners, and redundant subassemblies that make it heavier, costlier, and harder to assemble than it needs to be.
Let’s dive into the console teardown insights and explore why this seemingly simple component in the Hyundai turned the Ioniq into an engineering case study in what not to do.
A Simple Feature, A Complex Mechanism
The Ioniq 5’s sliding center console offers flexibility for driver and passenger comfort. It can move in ~10mm increments, allowing for 14 different positions. Useful? Sure. But the cost of enabling this movement is an engineering nightmare.
At the heart of the sliding mechanism lies a component with over 50 individual parts—including cabinet-style rollers, castle nuts with Nylock, and Allen screws—all requiring multi-directional assembly. The console’s extrusions create waste (called “offal”), and the mounting strategy necessitates special tools or fixtures just to access critical fastening points.
As Sandy Munro remarked, “This is murderous to try and put together.”
Violations of Lean Design 101
Our teardown emphasizes two foundational principles in lean design:
- Does it need to move?
- Does it need to be made from a different material?
If the answer is no, the part should be eliminated or combined. Unfortunately, the Ioniq 5 console breaks both rules—repeatedly.
- Multiple materials are used in close proximity where one would suffice, like injection-molded plastics paired with stamped metals.
- Complex assembly directions—bolts coming from all sides—hinder automation and inflate labor costs.
- No part self-fixtures to another, forcing extra handling and the need for manual alignment.
- Plastic components use both snap fits and screws, adding redundancy with no tangible gain.
Even simple trim pieces use 30+ hand-placed felt patches just to prevent rattles—design problems better solved at the structural level.
Heavy on Parts, Light on Value
The console contains an estimated 200+ components, many of which could be eliminated with thoughtful design. One of the key criticisms? Lack of subassembly logic.
Instead of pre-assembling mechanisms off the main line, Hyundai builds it piece-by-piece in place. This approach increases error potential, slows production, and adds labor cost. Even the armrest hinge—a relatively simple two-way design—requires multiple fasteners, brackets, and tight-access screw placements.
Weight is another major offender. The entire console comes in at a whopping 19.4 kilograms (42.6 lbs). For reference, Sandy Munro believes a leaner redesign could bring this down to 8–9 kg, cutting the weight by more than 50%—a critical metric for EV efficiency.
Comparison to Competitor Designs
Munro compares the Ioniq 5’s console to the Mustang Mach-E’s approach. The Mach-E consolidates structure and surface in a single molded part, uses minimal brackets, and embraces a top-down assembly strategy that simplifies tooling.
In contrast, Hyundai’s design requires stacking layers of metal and plastic brackets, then bolting them together with long fasteners that sandwich the components like a brick. There’s even a need for angled screwdrivers or special 90-degree tools to access tight points—a surefire sign of poor design for assembly (DFA).
What Went Wrong?
Sandy speculates this could be a “black box” component—outsourced without strict internal engineering oversight. If so, it shows how easily a vendor can introduce inefficiencies when OEMs don’t apply robust part value criteria.
Examples like:
- Using both plastic and stamped parts where one would do.
- Relying on hand-placed BSR patches instead of integrated acoustic design.
- Creating structures too complicated for line-side assembly or offline prebuild.
…all point to a lack of systems engineering discipline and an opportunity for improvement.
A Redesign Opportunity
Our team here at Munro & Associates doesn’t just critique—they offer solutions.
Tyler and Sandy agree this console is ripe for a lean redesign workshop. Initial suggestions include:
- Part consolidation via integrated molding.
- Eliminating redundant fasteners by improving snap-fit precision.
- Redesigning for single-direction assembly, enabling faster and more automated build processes.
- Reducing material waste from unnecessary extrusions and stamped cutouts.
- Switching to high-strength plastics with the right fillers, reducing the need for steel or aluminum.
In Sandy’s words: “We could get this down to about 40 parts, still have the sliding feature, and cut the weight in half.”
Why This Matters: Scaling Smarter in EV Development
As electric vehicle platforms mature, interior systems—often overlooked compared to propulsion or battery tech—are becoming critical opportunities for optimization. The Ioniq 5’s center console may appear minor, but its inefficiencies represent a larger industry challenge: failing to carry lean principles through every subsystem.
When manufacturers allow subsystem complexity to balloon—through outsourcing, siloed design, or legacy component reuse—they risk undermining overall vehicle efficiency, cost targets, and time-to-market. For EV startups and legacy OEMs alike, the message is clear: every gram and every labor motion counts.
A simplified console architecture reduces material costs, cuts down on fastener spend, shrinks tool and fixture investment, and streamlines training. More importantly, it reduces the likelihood of assembly defects and improves overall product quality.
For engineers, program managers, and procurement leads, this teardown reinforces the value of cross-functional collaboration—from design to manufacturing engineering. Applying a robust DFA/DFM mindset can avoid downstream costs and help hit sustainability targets sooner.
Munro & Associates has made a name out of showing how thoughtful design equals better business. And this console teardown proves there’s still plenty of low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked—even from the inside of an EV.
Final Takeaways for EV Engineers
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 center console teardown is a textbook example of how not to scale complexity in interior design. It highlights the importance of:
- Applying lean manufacturing principles.
- Designing parts to self-fixture and snap-fit.
- Minimizing direction changes in assembly.
- Reducing part count and material variation.
For EV engineers, the lesson is clear: efficiency isn’t just about batteries and motors. Every gram, every screw, every motion matters—especially in a world where consumers expect innovation without compromise.
Learn from the Best
Whether you’re designing for cost, quality, or manufacturability—Munro’s teardown insights can help you build smarter, leaner, and better. Want to see more engineering deep dives like this? Check out teardown videos and analysis from Munro Live. Or explore more at Munro & Associates.