Video: 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5: Review

t I've appreciated for a couple reasons, not the least of which is its comfortable ride. And that is something that has been extremely rare in affordable EVs for some reason. And that includes, I'll mention, the vehicle we just announced as our best EV of 2022, the Tesla Model Y. It has a competent ride, but it's too firm for our terrible roads here in the Chicago area. Now I'm pleased to say that the 2022 Ioniq 5 does carry over that comfortable ride and has a lot of other good things about it. We'll talk about what's good, what's bad, and I will make some comparisons with the Tesla Model Y. Bear in mind that the Ioniq 5 and a lot of other models you've been hearing about recently 'cause they're so new were not available for full evaluation when we deliberated for our award. So this is our first chance to set it up against what is, by fiat, our benchmark and a market leader, the Tesla Model Y. The Ioniq 5 is an SUV sort of. I mean, it's not very high off the ground. The ground clearance is only about 6.1 inches, but if you compare it with the Ford Mustang Mach-E, that doesn't look like an SUV either, and it's ground clearance is only 5.7 inches. For comparison, the Tesla Model Y is 6.6 inches, so it has everything else that people seem to like about SUVs. It has the hatch, it's roomy, versatile, sits a little bit higher, all that good stuff. Now there are three trim levels, SE, SEL, and limited. And there are a lot of things about the limited that are exclusive, including on the outside here. You got your 20 inch wheels, the gloss black accents, and these side sills are more elaborate, more detailed. On the lower trims they'll just be black. Now you'll notice the door handles are flush, which we're seeing a lot more of. Also the case on the Model Y, but on the Model Y, you gotta kind of stick your finger in there and push it and pull it, and if someone comes up to your car who's never gotten into it before, they have no idea what to do. At least with this car, they pop out for you, and you can actually have it programmed so when you approach with the key in your pocket, they pop out automatically, which is kind of neat. We've had a little trouble with ice and snow with them not popping out or them not going back in, but for what it's worth, same thing can happen with the Model Y and their guidance from Tesla when that happens is to pound it with your fist, but not so hard that you'll damage it, however hard that is. So we'll just call this one a draw. Oh, look. See, it thinks I didn't mean it. Now before we get to the interior, let's talk about the driving. As I mentioned, the ride quality is good in the Ioniq 5, which is really nice to see, because it is still rare in the class of affordable electric vehicles. We found the Mustang Mach-E strangely bouncy. And even if you go back to things like the Nissan Leaf, too firm. Our own Tesla Model Y. Too firm. This is nice, more than livable. It might help that this has such a nice long wheel base, but what that doesn't seem to help with is the turning circle, which is a ponderous 39.3 feet. Regardless of whether it's rear wheel drive or all wheel drive, that is worse than the Mustang Mach-E and it's way worse than the Volkswagen ID.4. I remember in this very location marveling at the tight turning circle that the ID.4 rear wheel drive took. It's six feet tighter than this vehicle. And even the all-wheel drive version of the ID.4 is three feet tighter than the turn that the Ioniq 5 takes. So that's one downside. As for handling, the Ioniq 5 is decent. It doesn't seem to be designed to be particularly sporty. And even though the rear motor has more power than the front, it tends to feel a little bit more like a front wheel drive car much of the time, and that's probably by design to keep it from getting in trouble, because it's a little too easy with the torque of an electric motor to spin out if you have too much power in the rear. I assume that that is just a design. It's something we've noticed in others, including the ID.4. The Ioniq 5 is quick. It does zero to 60 in less than five seconds in this version with all wheel drive, which is comparable to our Tesla Model Y. Now it does depend which mode you're in, though. There are four driving modes, which you activate with the button right on the steering wheel. There is normal, sport, eco, and if you hold it down, there's also a snow mode, and they're all pretty well executed but I've noticed that in eco mode, it doesn't give you full acceleration off the line, and I think that's a mistake. I mean, if you want to dull the acceleration in eco mode, that makes sense, and gas powered cars do that as well. But I feel like if you floor it, you should still get full power for the sake of safety and such. I think that that is a mistake on Hyundai's part. Maybe it's something that they could change in an over the air update in the future. I don't know if they'll do it, but I think it would be wise. One of my favorite aspects of driving the Ioniq 5 is the number and variety of regenerative braking levels. Now I teased Volkswagen in my review of the ID.4 for having only two regenerative braking settings, neither of which were really adequate because it's just software. It's programming. Why not have three? Go crazy, right? Well, apparently Hyundai did go crazy 'cause I think they have six or seven or something like that, different settings here, which can get a little confusing, but if you figure it out, it can be really useful. You've got a little read out here that says LV and your options are LV zero, which is like coasting. And then LV one, two, three by clicking on the left paddle for increasing levels of regenerative braking, where you let off the pedal and it decelerates the car further. Then if you click one more time, you get i-Pedal appears, and that is maximum regenerative braking. Essentially one pedal driving, where you can drive almost exclusively with the accelerator pedal, not go to the brake pedal, and that'll even let you come to a complete stop without stepping on the brake in most cases. And if that weren't enough, you can also hold the right paddle and it'll go to an auto setting. And what auto does is it uses the radar in the front to watch traffic in front of you. And it will use regenerative braking to maintain distance. And it'll also change regeneration and your braking based on grade. So if you're going up and down hills and such, it will automatically maintain your speed that way. And on top of all that, you can change how much regen you have in the auto setting and in all of these settings, apart from i-Pedal, if you want more and you're too lazy to move your foot from the pedal, the accelerator pedal to the braking pedal, you can just grab and hold the left paddle and it will add more braking as if it's like a hand brake. This is kind of the way General Motors does things with their EVs, but I think it's the only way they do it, which is odd to me. They don't have like fixed modes. So yeah, it seems a little confusing, but once you figure out how you want it, it's great to have this level of adjustability. And these features, once you get out of an EV and get into a conventional car and they aren't there anymore, you start to recognize that electric cars bring more to the table than just what everyone expects, the environmental advantages, et cetera. So really nice job on Hyundai's part with the regenerative braking approach. The interior is definitely modern. Some people love it. Some people are not as wild about it, but it seems to be well matched to an electric car, which people expect to be somehow a little bit futuristic. One of the best things about it is how open it is, and not just open from having the battery pack low and not having intruding drive train humps and stuff on the floor, but it doesn't have that console, which really takes up a lot of space. This is all open for a backpack or a purse, et cetera. Not all EVs take advantage of that. And this being a limited has a couple extra features, like the center console here can slide, which is nice. The armrest can be completely out of your way if you don't want it there. See how much extra room is right here as well. If there's a downside to this, it's one less place for buttons to appear. And one of the things that automakers are struggling with is finding places to put controls for the vehicle. They end up in the touch screen, and one slight problem I have with the car is that the controls for the heated seats and steering wheel and the heated steering wheel is in all trim levels except the SE are buried a little bit. You've got to either go through the touch screen or you hit a button here that says Warmer. What does warmer mean? It's a weird name for it, but it brings up a menu that gives you your controls for the seat heater and steering wheel and passenger seating. I feel like heated seats and steering wheel should always be a top level button that you can hit no matter what 'cause you turn 'em on, they get too hot, you gotta turn 'em back off. You never know who you're driving and whether they want, it's just, they should always be top level. The other thing we're not wild about is this type of capacitive touch sensitive control below the real buttons here that are also on the steering wheel. Why? Because they don't always work as well as real buttons. Especially if you have gloves on. Now for what it's worth, these have worked quite well with gloves and not all of them do, but it's not our favorite approach. Now, if we're gonna compare this with other vehicles, including our Model Y, you gotta give credit for this giant instrument panel because the Model Y doesn't have one at all. It relies almost exclusively on a giant touch screen in the middle. On the instrument panel, you have everything you could possibly want. You have the percentage charge of the battery, you have projected distance, and that distance varies with temperature, exterior temperature and such, which always affects your range in electric car, and whether you are in a different mode or you turn up the heat and stuff like that, whereas our Model Y always gives the best case scenario distance, which we think is really bizarre. So there's a lot right here, and it's supplemented by a terrific head up display, which is exclusive to the limited trim level. It's big, and it has a lot of augmented reality features like we've seen in the luxury vehicles, like from Cadillac and Mercedes, where arrows appear when you're navigating, showing you right when it's time to make the turn. Really rich stuff that helps justify the extra cost of the limited, so that's good as well. I'll point out another feature that's exclusive to the limited trim level in the Ioniq 5, and that is the full glass roof, which is pretty popular among EVs for some reason, and it's definitely something that the Tesla Model Y is known for. But there is one advantage here over the Model Y, and that is a full, completely opaque sun shade. You don't always get that. You don't get it in the Tesla. The backseat is nice and roomy, partly because of a sliding backseat that lets you maximize where you want your space, cabin or cargo area. The head room is okay. I'm six feet tall and I fit. So I don't think it's necessarily the best headroom that you can get, but it is more than workable. This is one of the places where the limited trim level's exclusive glass sunroof really pays off. It just makes it feel even more open. Couple other exclusives for the limited trim level. The sun shades on the rear doors and adjustable head restraints. Overall, definitely a decent family vehicle back here. Taking a look at the Ioniq 5's cargo area, the retractable cargo shade is a limited trim level feature once again. The cargo volume is quite impressive actually. By our measurements, which don't match the specifications you'll get from the manufacturer, but are much better at comparing different models from different manufacturers, we got 19.1 cubic feet of volume, which beats the ID.4's 18.9 cubic feet behind the backseat. Now we measure with the seat all the way back when it's an adjustable sliding back seat. So if you slide the seat farther forward, that means you get even more volume than that. We also measure with any space that's underneath the cargo floor like that. And there's quite a bit here, even if it is oddly shaped. Now you might be wondering how about a front trunk? The ID.4 doesn't have a frunk. The Ioniq 5 kind of does. That's it. There's really not much to speak of. Maybe you could put your trickle charger in here. Nothing to get excited about. Now, the Model Y is probably the winner in this category, even if you ignore its front trunk, or frunk, which is sizeable, it has 20.9 cubic feet of cargo volume, beating all the others I've mentioned. And for what it's worth, the Mustang Mach-E, even when you combine its front trunk and its rear cargo area is behind the others I've mentioned. So yes, you can say that's not much of a frunk, but if you're looking at cargo area in general, the Ioniq 5, not so bad. Let's talk about charging and the opposite, using the car as a backup generator. Here's a feature I like a lot. It's a motorized door over the charge port like Tesla uses. You might think that that's not necessary, but I'm telling you, once you've been doing this a while, you realize you tend to leave these doors open. Even if you've never done that with your gas powered car, there's something about the fact that you charge every night, you're doing it more often. You get in the car and the door's open, and you got an alert on the instrument panel. What a pain. You gotta get out and close it. As soon soon as you put this car into gear or into drive mode, the door will close automatically by itself, which is nice. When it comes to charging. one of the advantages from the Ioniq EV, the previous generation, the earlier model, that comes over to this one is this is a very efficient car. Efficiency matters in EVs just like it does in gas powered cars because you're putting in less energy and paying less to go the same distance, but more important, it means when you're charging, you're getting more miles of range for the same amount of energy in the same amount of time. And when it comes to home charging, I was quite impressed with the Ioniq 5. Now the spec says that it takes 10.9 kilowatts of power at level two if you use a 48 amp home charger, which is pretty robust. I was reading more than 11 kilowatts on the instrument panel while charging. Where I'm more skeptical is with DC fast charging. One of the big claims to fame of this car is that it has an 800 volt battery pack, which is twice what most EVs have. And that means it should charge faster at DC fast charging stations in public. And there are claims associated with that. Unfortunately, we've only had one opportunity to test it, and we've had the same experience we've had fast charging just about everything, which is it never matches what you're expecting it to and what the manufacturer claims. We spent more time charging, and even though, technically, we were using a 350 kilowatt charging station, we never saw it get beyond 150 kilowatts for more a few seconds. It like jumped up to 240 kilowatts but literally for just a few seconds, then went back down. So you don't end up getting the kind of results that the manufacturers claim, but I will give them credit. It has twice the voltage of normal cars, and it did charge twice as fast in real life, not the claims, as the Mustang Mach-E and the Volkswagen ID.4. But it is roughly the same as what we have experienced with our Tesla Model Y, which is still a 400 volt vehicle. One potential advantage to electric cars is using them as backup power, but it's not widespread yet. The Ioniq 5, however, does offer that in a feature called vehicle-to-load, which I think we can all agree is a terrible name. I mean, I understand what load means in the electrical sense. I love engineers, but there's a reason we don't let them name things, and this is it. I always tease Ford Motor Company for giving cutesy marketing names to everything they do. I think we could use their help here. V2L, vehicle-to-load, is available, once again, only on the limited trim level, and I'll show you how it works. It means you get this. It looks like the pistol grip from a charger, and it fits the same connector, but it has a different purpose. Once you plug it in, you have an outlet. Now understand that this outlet is not like the one in the back seat of your mini van or SUV that has like 160 watts, or 400 Watts I think is the most I've ever seen. This is a full 15 amp outlet, which, at 120 volts, is close to, I think, 2,000 watts. A 15 amp outlet is what your house has, either 15 or 20 amps in your house. So that's enough to run, really, almost anything, not just little electronics, you know, a laptop or something like that. So we like to illustrate things. I brought along my 12 amp circular saw. Would you like to try it? I thought you might. So we're gonna plug it in. Then there's a button here you push to turn it on, and a little green light comes down on top and here. (saw buzzes) Not bad. Now I also tried a 15 amp Makita sander, which, wouldn't you know it, I also have here. You know, 15 amps sounds like it should work, but it didn't seem to like it. Reason being, you know, even though it says 15 amps, sometimes when you first turn it on, it spikes a lot, draws a lot of current and that can not work out well. Would you like to try this one? Should I go ahead? Okay, I'll try this, too. Do I have a green light? I do. All right. Well, we'll try. Oh, that's all we got. Well, honestly, I did it a few times, and one time it did start, but no harm done. It does reset and nothing is broken, but it just goes to show that you've got real power here, and what you don't know yet is there's another outlet inside the car that's a 16 amp outlet. So you put these two together and you've got a lot of power. You've got over 3,000 watts, I think they say, and that's more than I have in my backup Honda generator that I use when the power goes out at my house when there's a rainstorm. So it's not perfect because the one inside would require you to have the car on and running, and this one doesn't, and you'd obviously have to run like an extension cord outta the window or something like that. But I mean, with this much current, you can run your refrigerator or some pumps or whatever. Having extras like this, the ability to have backup power from your EV gives you another reason to buy an EV beyond just driving an environmentally friendly vehicle. Now let's talk pricing. The SE, the base trim level, starts at $44,895. The SEL is 47,145, and the limited, 51,845. These are all with destination, but before the $7,500 federal tax credit for which you may be eligible. These prices aren't that bad for what you get. Now, you might have noticed a $4,700 difference between the SEL and the limited. Now I mentioned a lot of the limited trim exclusive features while I was talking, but I'm gonna run through 'em again so you can decide for yourself whether they're worthwhile. There's the big moon roof, the ventilated front seats, in addition to heated front seats, driver's seat memory, the driver's seat relaxation function, which will be helpful while you're waiting for your car to charge at a public station, adjustable head restraints for the backseat, a Bose stereo, the head up display, the sliding function for the center console, the rear window side shades, vehicle-to-load, the smartphone as key feature, which was pioneered by Tesla actually, a really high quality surround view monitor, blind spot view monitor system, which turns on views of your blind spot when you use the turn signal and remote smart parking assist which allows you to move the vehicle forward and backward using the key fob or your smartphone when you're outside of the vehicle. Only you can decide whether those features are worth $4,700, but honestly, it might come down to what's available with the chip crisis that's going on and what it's doing to inventory. When we've looked at the EVs from this latest big push, we've found a major drawback, or more than one major drawback for each of them. We're not looking for perfection, but we're looking for something that's a little bit more well rounded, and I think we're getting there with the 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5. Granted, they bury some heated seat controls, and there's no rear wiper, which is a problem, but it's not the only vehicle like that. I'm having a hard time finding any one thing that seems like it could be a deal breaker for most people. I like it a lot. I'd like to spend more time with it. I think this one could be a real winner maybe in future years.