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Pokémon theming has come to Hyundai’s infotainment and digital instrument clusters for owners in Korea, for a price.
Pokémon theming has come to Hyundai’s infotainment and digital instrument clusters for owners of certain models in Korea.
Two Pokémon themes, "Pikachu Lightning Theme" and "Ditto World Theme", are available for the 2026 Palisade, Ioniq 9, 2026 Nexo, 2026 Ioniq 6, 2026 Sonata, The Edge and 2026 Staria.
As well as Pokémon theming replacing the default look of the vehicles' infotainment, custom animations featuring Pokémon play when the vehicle is turned on and off.
The Pokémon themes are not free, priced at around $30 each and purchasable through Hyundai’s Bluelink Store.
The Bluelink store that allows Hyundai owners to download custom display themes is not yet available in Australia. A Hyundai Australia spokesperson told Drive Bluelink is "currently under evaluation for the Australian market, but nothing confirmed as yet".
These latest themes follow a recent trend from Hyundai of custom options based on popular intellectual properties.
Hyundai USA recently made a Snoopy / Peanuts theme available for American owners to coincide with the launch of custom infotainment themes in the USA.
Hyundai’s Korean site said the company planned to expand the Pokémon themes availability to other models.
Pokémon fans on social media have been attempting to find loopholes to install the theming on cars outside of Korea.
Pokémon originated in Japan in 1996 with a video game that allowed players to collect and battle creatures known as Pokémon (an abbreviation of Pocket Monsters). The brand quickly expanded into trading cards and a television show.
International collaborations between Pokémon and car brands have been common over the Japanese brand's history.
Numerous images surfaced online of custom-painted Volkswagen ID3s in Chinese showrooms several years ago.
Pokémon also created a 2023 limited edition Pikachu trading card in China to be used as part of the ID3s promotion.
For the 2023 Tokyo motor show, Honda built a life-size version of Koraidon, a motorcycle-inspired Pokémon that players can ride in 2022’s Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
Earlier in the company's history, promotional efforts in the late 90s and early 2000s produced custom Volkswagen Beetles and PT Cruisers.
Examples of these promotional vehicles are still operational. Pokemon enthusiast and YouTuber ‘Mewisme700’ owns examples of both the PT Cruiser and Beetle and has documented the history of these vehicles online.
Max is the News Publishing Coordinator for Drive. He enjoys creating engaging digital content, including videos, podcasts, interactive maps, and graphs. Prior to Drive, he studied at Monash University and gained experience working for various publications. He grew up playing Burnout 3: Takedown on the PS2 and was disappointed when real life car races didn’t have the same physics.
