I’m down in southern California today, braving the rain to test drive the new Hyundai Ioniq 5 for 2022.
For me, this is one of the most exciting new electric vehicles in the world for 2022 because not only is this the start of a new ionic sub brand for Hyundai that will include the ionic 6 a 4-door sedan and the ionic 7 a 3-row crossover, but it is also one of the first 800 volt evs in the world, similar to the latest electric vehicles from audi and porsche.
This hyundai will support 800 volt dc fast charging, On the outside, the ionic 5 doesn’t look like any other Hyundai sold in the United States right now.
That’s because Hyundai recently decided that instead of making all of their vehicles look like scale replicas of one another, each vehicle in their lineup will have some unique styling cues, and pretty much every styling cue on the ionic 5 is very unique.
It looks very modern but also has a hint of retro in it, with things like these very square accents on the doors.
The top two trims, sel and limited, get projector headlights, active grille shutters, and a really cool design touch is that the silver strip that runs from one side to the other has little illuminated slashes in it to give this a very distinctive look up front in pictures the ionic 5 doesn’t look as big as it is this is about an inch wider than a hyundai tucson and at 182.5 inches long This platform is going to spawn a larger sedan and of course a three row crossover in the future from some angles the ionic 5 comes across as a slightly more angular slightly more modern volkswagen gti I don’t think that’s a problem at all but I think as a re-design this platform will spawn a larger sedan and of course a three row crossover in the future from some angles the ionic 5 comes across as a slightly more ang We also don’t have as much black body cladding here as we do on some competitive electric vehicles or small crossovers; instead, hyundai has gone for a silver accent here with some interesting hashes to give it a circular theme, similar to what we see on the wheel.
Now, I have to say that black wheels aren’t exactly my thing; all models have full led tail light modules, and the turn signals are red, which isn’t my preference; I kind of wish that rear cross traffic detection and blind spot monitoring the parking sensors in the back driver retention lane keeping assistance autonomous braking with pedestrian cyclist and intersection detection If you want all of the amenities found on the restricted trim, such as the 360-degree camera front parking sense aided automatic parking and the more aggressive lane keeping assistance system with automated lane shifting in the United States, they will be included on every ioniq 5 model.
Hyundai has opted to just provide us the bigger battery pack that will be available in the ionic 5 all around the globe.
As a result, the range estimates will differ depending on where you purchase the ioniq in the United States.
This is a 77.4 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that will be mounted below the car in a skateboard configuration.
Hyundai has announced that the base model will have a 168 horsepower electric motor in the rear and a 58 kilowatt hour lithium ion battery pack, with a range of 220 miles.
Unfortunately, that announcement came after I filmed the video and drove the car, so without further ado, let’s get back to what they supposedly You can get your ionic 5 with one of two motor setups: rear wheel drive with 225 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque, which will get you 303 miles of range and be the most efficient, or all-wheel drive with a separate front electric motor right here just under this small cargo storage area right there that gives you up to 320 horsepower total 221 in the rear so just a little bit less in the rear, which is what I’m driving today.
This front electric motor has a world’s first for an eevee: it has a mechanical disconnect for the front electric motor, rather than relying on a different electric motor design like we see in some vehicle manufacturers that is perhaps a little bit more efficient, this will remain rear-wheel drive when all-wheel drive is not needed, and then it will mechanically disconnect the front motor from the equation to help imprve efficiency.
Hyundai, Kia, and a number of other automakers are putting a lot of effort into developing an 800 volt infrastructure.
What happens if you connect into a 400-volt outlet? That’s a great question.
Hyundai has redesigned the rear inverter module that controls the rear electric motor to also act as a dc dc converter, allowing it to accept 400 volts through the same connector bucket up to 800 volts to charge the battery pack.
There was some initial speculation that the battery pack would be split in two and presented to the charge station in parallel or in series, but this is not the case.
Instead of having a separate dc dc converter like we have in that porsche where you also have to select the 50kw version or the faster version pay extra for that one, hyundai has decided to build that technology standard into the rear motor inverter so even the base version of the ionic 5 will be able to charge at some faster rates at those peaks.
We find just over 27 cubic feet of cargo space, which I believe is a bit of a missed opportunity for Hyundai.
I would have preferred to see this squared off a little bit more so we could have a more practical cargo area.
Again, aerodynamics are very important for any ev, and that’s why we find this particular profile.
It’s also why we don’t have a rear windshield wiper on this 27.2 cubic feet puts this right.
Many of you have questioned why the ionic 5 doesn’t have a front trunk, particularly given this is an EV platform.
The solution is really rather pragmatic.
This hood is much shorter than the hoods found on the model y and the ford mustang machi, both of which provide us with fairly spacious front trunks, especially the one in the ford.
However, in order to fit a 24 inch roller bag under here like the ford, the front end would have to be longer, and at 182.5 inches long, Hyundai would have had to sacrifice rear cargo capacity in order to give this vehicle the same length and have a large front trunk by simply adding that extra length Headrests that adjust in four directions, height-adjustable shoulder belts for the driver and front passenger, and a distinctive interior design a large portion of the interior is made from recycled or recyclable materials, and as we’ve seen with other Hyundai vehicles, they’ve combined some interesting materials on the interior, such as the imitation leather seats fabric on the back, and you can see the ambient lighting right there on the rear doors.
Moving to the front, we have fairly plain styling for the modern theme here but plenty of soft touch materials soft touch armrest there soft touch middle of the door harder plastic Moving over to the middle part of the dashboard, we have two standard just over 12 inch screens in this very mercedes-like pod here you can see it looks a lot like other hyundai keys.
We have buttons for the autonomous parking system, so you can park and unpark it out of the vehicle, open the rear cargo hatch, press and hold for the horn, and then open that charge door right there.
The software on the main infotainment screen should be familiar if you’ve been in any recent Hyundai vehicle, other than the skin, which is more of a white theme on this vehicle, it’s very much the same as every other Hyundai vehicle so we have some direct access here to seat he The ev screen is going to be the most distinct from other Hyundai cars out there because you can manage things like the vehicle to load.
You can essentially run those loads until the battery reaches 50 percent or all the way down to 20%.
We can also click up here and get a few additional choices.
For example, an eco driving score shows that I’ve been driving it aggressively here and less aggressively in the morning.
We can also click over here to electricity usage and see where the electricity is being consumed right now, so electronics are 0.39 kw, climate control is just 200 watts over there, and drivetrain is zero because we’re parked, as we can see in other EVs.
You may pick how full the battery will become while you’re on a dc charger or an ac charger by clicking this button here.
You can also restrict ac charging current if you have that specific issue where you are.
Hyundai enables us to turn on and off winter mode, which is a unique feature.
Utility mode allows vehicle systems as well as the vehicle to load power delivery function to operate for extended periods of time, say if you just want to party in your yard or if you’re camping.
Below the infotainment screen we find two large air vents, the start stop button, and some physical buttons.
In terms of the steering wheel, it’s a spherical two-spoke type, which is a unique twist.
This is the headlight switch stock right over there and the turn signal stock over here on this side we have a stock for the windshield wipers and then this is the gear shift I press my foot on the brake there rotate it forward you can see it’s a hyundai but it’s also an ionic over here we have some new stocks this is the headlight switch stock right over there and the turn signal stock over here on this side we have a stock for the windshield wipers and then The steering wheel itself has paddles on the rear that act as regen brake pedals, allowing you to reduce and increase the amount of regen with this paddle.
Over here, we have programmable buttons on the steering wheel.
This is a favorite button, but the mode button can also be programmed as a favorite button.
The buttons on this side relate to that multi-function lcd cluster and the adaptive cruise control system that’s standard.
This is the aggressive lane centering function button, as with other Hyundai vehicles.
The amount of information displayed by that screen is pretty basic.
Now let’s take the ioniq 5 out on the road.
From a complete stop, full power comes on around 35 or 36 miles per hour, which is pretty similar to a wide variety of evs out there like the id4 or the ford mustang in terms of 0 to 60 performance for evs.
The big difference between this and some evs that are going to be faster like certain versions of the tesla model y is that those vehicles generally ramp power more Hyundai has really tuned its stability control system to offer you a surprising amount of enjoyment out on your favorite winding mountain road while yet allowing you to be in complete control.
The 0-60 time in this model should be right around five seconds or just below there have been some early reports out of South Korea in that model that it went 4.9 seconds 0-62 so it should be right in that range obviously I haven’t had this at home to do any official testing but I would expect this to be ever so slightly slower than some versions of the ford mustang maki this is definitely faster than the volkswagen id4 probably going to be slower than the tesla model The other thing that surprised me with the ionic 5 is the suspension tune hyundai chose not to make this as firm as the maki or the tesla model y with the maki ford was definitely copying tesla a lot of big battery evs with ranges around 300 miles or so and have sporting pretenses tend to be firm and bouncy and that is not what we find in this even though we do have those relatively wide 20 inch wheels a lot of big battery It’s possible that the extra ground clearance found in this versus the mach e is one of the reasons for the better ride quality, but it also appears that the suspension simply has more motion available to it.
One of the problems with big battery electric vehicles is that you only have about 5 000 pounds of ev and not enough distance to dampen the vehicle’s motions.
This limitation is especially noticeable in electric vehicles with a sporty mission like the Tesla Model 3 or the Nissan Leaf.
The cabin is also very quiet, which is a problem with a lot of electric vehicles because without the white noise of the engine and drive train in the background, you can focus a bit more on tire noise, wind noise, or buzzes of electronic systems in the vehicle, and the electronic systems in the ford mustang maki can have a very slight buzz, which I don’t mind but I know it bothers some people, and I haven’t heard that in the ionic 5.
The ionic 5 also has excellent control over wind and tire noise.
I’d say this is certainly quieter on the road than the standard mustang machi, despite the fact that it has 255 tires instead of the 225 tires found on the mustang.
At this point in the day, I’ve put roughly 150 miles on the ioniq 5.
and I’ve split my time driving this aggressively out on fun winding mountain roads and driving it more sedately in town and on the freeway at 65 or 70 miles per hour depending on the exact situation that you’re driving this on, you should experience fuel economy between two and a half miles per kilowatt hour and three and a half miles per kilowatt hour if you’re out on level steady state highway especially country highway where the speed limits are going to b Heat pumps are far more efficient than traditional resistive element heaters like the one found in the mock e.
The reason for this is that a heat pump like this isn’t creating new heat; instead, it’s moving heat from outside to inside the cabin, which is why heat pumps like this can be three or even 400 percent efficient, meaning you’d get three to four times the amount of heat for the same amount of power.
Bottom line, out on the road for now, the ionic 5 is a genuinely great new electric vehicle, and I appreciate the fact that Hyundai went in a different path than a lot of the other major battery electric vehicles now on the market.
The maki was a clear rip-off of Tesla’s design.
To be honest, it’s a Ford version of what the model y consumer wants.
It has a sporty attitude, a rear power bias, a front trunk, and it’s shaped eerily similar to the model y.
Hyundai went in a different direction with the ionic 5, especially when it came to suspension tuning.
This suspension is tuned very well for handling, and it definitely does really well on your favorite winding mountain road.
However, the center of gravity will be a teeny tiny bit higher than something like the machi and gt or gt performance trims, and it won’t have the same level of 0 to 60 performance, but I’m more than willing to trade all of that for the ride quality.
[Music] Unfortunately, on this rainy day, I don’t know how much the ionic 5 will cost, but I do know that it will be available in six distinct colors, all of which are jewel tones, blacks, or whites.
The ionic 5 will be available in three distinct inside colors and three different trimmings, with no red palette currently available.
The SE trim will provide you with a range of 303 miles.
The standard features include 800 volt dc fast charging, a converter to convert 400 volts to 800 volts for older dc fast charging stations, and a dual 12.3 inch lcd cluster setup.
The sel trim adds their latest highway driving assistance software, power tailgate leatherette seats, and ambient lighting.
The limited trim, which is what I’ve been driving today, has everything.
If everything goes according to plan, you will be able to purchase the ionic 5 this calendar year in 2021.
Apparently, there are already several hundred models waiting at the port to be distributed to dealers across the country.
At first, the ionic 5 will be available only in a select number of states including California, Texas, Florida, and a number of other ev friendly states.
225 horsepower rear-wheel drive, 320 horsepower all-wheel drive, and remember that the all-wheel drive package includes the heat pump and a few additional extras in the interior.
The basic se extended range trim, with 303 miles and 225 horsepower, starts at 43 650.
There’s a 3 500 more for all-wheel drive, and the sel trim is 45 900.
I think that’s a good middle ground for the ionic five.
The limited trim starts at fifty thousand to six hundred dollars, and you can add all-wheel drive to that model as well.
Overall, the ionic five ends up being surprisingly well priced.
It’s pretty much right between the mock e for 2022 and the volkswagen id4 ford’s maki recently had a pretty significant price bump prices went up one thousand to three thousand dollars across the board.
The most significant difference is, of course, the base horsepower all-wheel drive in the ford is 2700 more in the ford logically because it doesn’t come with the heat pump technology that we find in the ionic five comparing comparable model to comparable model the ionic five is going to be four to five thousand dollars less expensive than the mustang machi but the power levels don’t quite correlate directly there are going to be versions 230 miles of range in that model The base model of the id4 isn’t exactly quick, but neither is the 168 horsepower ioniq 5.
The ionic 5 ends up being about 3 500 more than the base all-wheel drive version of the id4, so the id4 is still a great deal, even if you add the relatively expensive all-wheel drive option on that model, which adds 3680 to the base price and reduces range to 249 miles.
Please let me know what you think about all of this in the comments section below, and if you were shopping for a mainstream ev, would you get the ford mustang maki, which does a great tesla impersonation for a lower starting price, the volkswagen id4, which is attempting to be the volkswagen tiguan of evs, or the ioniq 5, which is marching to a different drummer but is still a good Let me know what you think in the comments area below, and you can also find me on Facebook.
alexnados, and keep tuned because I’ll get my hands on it as soon as I can for a complete weekly review.