Just came back from Hyundai dealer after test drive of 2019 Ionic basic model. As salesperson was busy with other buyer, so we got the car for ourselves and battery at 25%. Fist thing I did - found DC charger - EVGO DC charger. Tried to use it with credit card - got error communicating with car on charger, so is the car complained about charger. Ok started again, oops could not disconnect DC charger cable from Ionic - it is locked! Nothing works! Bolt owner next to the charger, came out to help with the troubles. No go. Should I call dealer and tell him I am stuck at the charger with cable impossible to disconnect? Just humiliating even. Then finally, with out any hope left I pressed button in between charger door and Charge timer buttons. Showing charging symbol and "Auto" with yellow status LED. Later, I found explanation in User Manual and it was the right thing to do to allow automatic lock/nlock when charging starts/stops. What a relieve! He was able to remove the cable! So started again, connected the cable, check; about to swipe CC, but other EV driver just used his EVGo RF card and this time he presses tiny green "start" button on the charger, Yey! It is charging at mind blowing 100A. There goes 35, 45, 55, 65, 70, 80 still 100A, 85% slowed to 50A, 90% - 47A, 92% - 36A. Finally a few minutes later it stopped at 95% and 129 Miles estimate. Total charging time 25%->95% ~40 mins (the status screen on charger only lasted for 30secs and was reset for new charge, so I could not take picture of final charging stats). Just crazy charging rates for such a small battery with no any slow down up to 80%, figures. It was good luck I picked this EVGo charger,
I think I am the first one to confirm 100A charge rates on Ionic EV is working and it is working exceptionally well. Well done Hyundai! So comes the driving test on Route 97 at excruciating 65 mph on cruise control, lol. If you are driving Leaf you know what is going to happen to GOM estimates and efficiency indicator at 65 mph even in the summer - they would start falling like dead fly. I drove in "normal" (not "eco") driving mode with heat off because it was basic model (without heat pump) and it would mess up my test. Anyway, to my amazement none of this happened! GOM was a few miles behind (good news) of actual distance traveled and efficiency was steady climbing from initial 4.0 miles/kWh (explains why GOM was not in the hurry to drop remaining range). It seems to defy gravity and physics (lol) and everything I knew about EV and highway drag. To make it short: I finished 33.2 miles Route 97 round trip with efficiency indicator steady climbing from 4.0 to 4.6 miles/kWh and range estimator at 102 miles (from 129 after charge).
In contrast, I drove my Leaf to Wawa this morning and battery went from 31% to 23% during 2.4 miles round trip on the flat local road below 35mph. The heater was on, but for EV sake - it is only 1 kWh x 5 minutes. WTF? 8% battery to drive 2.4 miles? 1.6 kWh for 2.4 Miles? 1.5 m/kWh? Just $$$$$ ridiculous. Some excuse - it was below freezing, so battery was cold, but still. Above freezing it is way better though. I still have 4.0 miles/kWh on it, just below freezing all instrumentation, behavior becomes not very stable: GOM becomes very pessimistic, yet battery level is holding up, but at the end it gives up too and starts to catch up with GOM pessimism.
Just to sum up: Hyundai 2019 Ionic Limited (heat pump) will deliver rated 125 miles in cold weather with heater on while driving 65 mph, guaranteed (considering the fact it was not fully charged (95%), and it is safe to assume no more than 5% ~ 1.35 KWh extra energy would be used by heat pump during 2 hours of 65 mph driving). In summer, it will get @ 5.5 to 6.5 miles/kWh (plenty of owner data to support it) over 150 miles of range. No need to take my word on it, here is a post of the actual owner from ionic forum:
Nov 19, 2018 #5
Ruben Mamer Cruz
New Member
For My pure Ionic EV one full charge shows 152 miles but with the regeneration settings I get anywhere from 172 to 185, So cal Edison charges $0.16 per Kw
Very comfortable inside in front and rear. And, it is better on the back than Kona (no kidding), Tesla 3 rear seat is just a joke. Regen is crazy strong at level 3 for such small battery, comparable to Bolt and 40kWh Leaf in e-pedal mode, but it would not stop completely as it switches to creep mode at very low speed. It would get to complete stop/resume when in TACC in stop-and-go traffic.
Ah, and one more thing. First one we test drove was also basic with only 16% battery (16 miles of range, it later moved up to 19 miles after I disabled heater) and heater on. I was wondering why it does not get over 4.2 m/kWh. Once checked energy consumption screen, heater was sucking over 5 kWh. Nope, thanks, off it goes. Efficiency started to climb as it should on this car. Once we got at the highway speeds it drove 3-4 miles, it issued low battery alert (like I did not know it would happen, but I wanted to see what this car does when battery gets really low). We turned around and headed back to the dealership to charge, after few more miles it announced reduced power output mode is active and speed was reduced to about 50 mph. Not sure it forced it or it was simply result of re-mapping of accelerator response when in reduced power mode, so same accelerator level will cause speed reduction. In any case, this change felt natural. We did not get any more warnings or instrumentation freaking out (like Leaf showing --- and not displaying anything at all). Once off the highway, it did not affect the rest of the trip as it was ~ 35mph in the city. Got back with 5 miles left to spare. The lesson learned:
you could run it all the way to 0% without any drama, another words you get the entire range to drive. It is just too risky and foolish, like situations with ICE cars on the side of the road with empty tanks we see time-to-time, rare but some folks manage to do it even on ICE cars. Sales person put it on "super charger" that happened to be just a level 2 charger and after I saw it and told him it will take upto 4 hours - he offered another one with 25%. The rest you already know
BTW, Bolt has 239 miles range, but it will disable drivetrain at 25 miles left (below freezing)! What? It is like a middle life crisis for Leaf. So what is the real range? Ah. Hyundai offers lifetime warranty on the all Ionics batteries (hybrids and EV). I am starting to believe, their engineers designed battery with this bold warranty in mind. So based on charging and low battery car characteristics: all advertised 27kWh is fully accessible when you get to drive the car without any dramas. The reason for it may be unusually large safety buffers. Based on my observation EV batteries usually have 5-8% top and bottom buffers, but Ionic has, possibly, 10-15% buffers on top and bottom end. So the real battery capacity is in ball pack of 32-34kWh. Add on top of it full battery temperature management and it should guarantee very long battery durability. So main concerns with EV is kind of addressed, so owner should not worry about battery and the car should resell pretty well too. BTW, Ionic (with heat pump) battery heater is probably the most efficient on the market as it uses heat pump shared with HVAC, all other EV are using resistive heater and some manufacturers avoid using it in normal circumstances as it will eat way too much energy and using it only as emergency heaters to prevent battery freezing. This tactic sucks big time as it decimates charging rates on DC chargers in cold weather.
Continued:
It rides better than Leaf for sure. Steering was precise and responsive. This is one of not many cars with almost perfect 50/50 weight distribution (with Bjørn Nyland behind wheel alone, with me and my wife it most likely become 52/48) and those are rear drive usually. I was curious how front wheel drive with this weight distribution would perform. The ride is compliant, not bouncy and boy they have nasty pot holes on Route 97. The powertrain is well balanced. The acceleration is linear and it accelerates to 65 mph without any hesitation. It is not going to twist your guts, but it drives just like other middle size ICE cars around (non V6), just torque-ish and quiet. 0-60 mph, if I recall correctly, is ~ 8 secs. I think traction motor power is perfectly matches on this car. In contrast, Kona/Niro motor is too powerful, causing oversteer and front tires to squeal even in "eco" mode and light foot. Both can not effectively transfer the torque as tires are small and vehicles are front heavy.
Basic trim' sound system is surprisingly good and bluetooth integration worked great. Separate woofers and tweeters and plenty of low extension - it does boom. The mirrors adjustment is more than enough to get "360" view, they also have blind spot monitor built-in. Real horns even on basic model (no meep meep).
I would go for basic model in hot/worm places, it would make this car a real bargain. But I need heater, so heat pump calls for Limited, but is also has a lot more features for driver comfort like TACC, LDS, Cross Traffic Alert, Proximity Alerts (front/rear), power driver ac/heated seat with memory, sunroof (really?), wireless phone charger and etc. Rear view mirror on basic does not have garage remote buttons and compass, and not self dimming, but it has 3 buttons for SOS, GPS request and BlueLink. It makes it more difficult to replace with self dimming one with garage remote buttons as none of those special buttons would be present, so you would loose some features if you decide to upgrade.
Touch screen is very responsive - no delays. Basic model does not have GPS navigation, but it has LTE connectivity and GPS sensor, blue link is available on all cars (you can locate car on the map with app and do all the things similar to other car apps). As a benefit, It has charging station info handy and updated in real time (the distance to the nearest charger and list of near by chargers). I am pretty sure it can pass navigation destination to Google or Apple phone through integration. Good turning radius, I missed turn and did very tight U-Turn without any difficulties and at first attempt.
My wife liked it too and actually gave me a green light for swap. No more dragging behind trucks and smelling diesel exhaust, no more driving below posted speed limits, cannot come sooner (Monday)
If Ionic 2020 gets 38.3 kWh battery, as they speculating, it will compete with Leaf e+plus as it would get into 200 miles real range on the highway. Right now - it competes with Leaf 40 kWh on highway. Actually, European range is 150 miles for both Ionic 27 kWh and Leaf 40 kWh.
For anybody interested to know what is inside of Ionic, the best source of info is parts web sites like this one https://www.hyundaipartsdeal.com/parts-list/2018-hyundai-ioniq-electric/battery-cable.html?Diagram=37371A11. You would get more info than any reviewer or blogger would ever tell you about any car. Battery is fully serviceable, any part including different cell modules could be purchased and replaced. It also shows how battery heating/cooling is engineered and so is a whole car in greatest details ever.
Do not get me wrong, I like(d) my Leaf. I bought it because of 80 miles would be enough for me, but I miscalculated the discrepancy in rated and real range, highway speeds and cold weather effect. Used Leaf value is impossible to beat, though. There is nothing in this price range. For city, the Leaf is very good car, but if your range involves prolonged highway driving - you need to look elsewhere or accept the real range would be cut by 20% or more. Leaf is great for commute even on highway if it is not too long. I needed to make 70 miles trip once a week and I really want to use EV for it as it would double cost savings, but most of it (95%) is on the highway, so not a chance to do it with absolute certainty - I would need en-route charging at Level 2 (mine has no DC option and there is no DC chargers alone the route anyway), so it would add at least an hour to the trip to get a 10 miles buffer. I tried it once, and it was a complete nightmare as I just got the car and did not know anything about chargers locations or PlugShare and other Apps.