My Nissan Leaf Forum

Hyundai IONIQ Electric First Drive Review

. . . According to Autocar, excitement isn’t the strong suit of the IONIQ Electric, but it’s still a decent car with relatively quick acceleration, excellent for city use with its smooth power delivery.

The quiet electric motor (as found in all other BEVs) does however reveal some background noise penetrating into the cabin –road roar and wind noise at speed, so perhaps not enough attention was given to insulating the plug-in version over the straight hybrid by Hyundai.

The brakes also don’t appeal to Autocar, as responsiveness seems to be an issue.

“Initial response is very sharp, but it feels like you need to push the pedal a long way further to get any meaningful stopping power”

The driving experience suggests that IONIQ Electric is positioned for normal driving, but without a sporty feel:

“Hyundai suggests that the Ioniq Electric should offer decent driving dynamics. The truth is that while it isn’t bad, it’s not going to set pulses racing. The steering has reasonable weight to it, but it’s vague around the straight-ahead and never communicates what the front wheels are doing.

There’s not a great deal of body roll, but it doesn’t take much to get the nose of the Ionic running wide; blame the low-resistance tyres for that. Pitch the car into a corner harder and you can tell the weight balance of the car is more even than that of a front-engined, front wheel-drive hatch, though.

Even so, this is a car that’s much happier being driven well within its limits. . . .”

You can alter how much the car decelerates when you lift off by using what look like gearshift paddles behind the steering wheel. The Ioniq starts with fairly weak regenerative braking initially, but this can be ramped up to slow the car faster and increase the amount of energy that goes back into the battery pack.

Although this does improve range and allows you to avoid pressing the brake the majority of the time, the regenerative braking is much more sudden than in a Nissan Leaf, for instance. We soon turned it back down again to make smoother progress.

="JejuSoul"Hi

...Am currently trying to write a conclusion. I want to write a positive ending to this, but am struggling to find good reasons why anyone would actually buy this car. It is a great car in so many respects but only has half the battery capacity of what seems to be its main competitor.

edatoakrun: I appreciate your comments and If I may I would like to use them in my conclusion. "Even more important, I expect the IONIQ to be much more fun to drive on my mountain roads than the Bolt". And "That's close to all the range I want for occasional longer trips, and all I want to pay for and drag around with me on every other trip, when I don't need nearly that much."

I don't yet know if has been very attractively priced in the U.S...

edatoakrun wrote:

="LKK"...Range is only half the next generation BEVs...

If by "next generation" you mean the Bolt, which will be on the US market only a few months later than the Ioniq, that is probably incorrect.

If you assume the Ioniq has ~half the total available capacity of the Bolt, it will still have more than half the total effective range, due to higher efficiency.

This will be particularly noticeable at high speeds and on trips with large ascents, due to the Bolts high weight and drag.

On a cold day at freeway speeds for example, the Ioniq might have close to 20% greater efficiency in m/kWh than the Bolt.

Meaning, that if you wanted to do something as foolish as take a very long freeway trip in either BEV using todays available DC infrastructure, generally limited to under 50 kW (and with many CCS DCs only ~ half that fast) you might actually be able to complete your trip almost as quickly, and perhaps even more rapidly, in an Ioniq than you could in a Bolt.

Due to the multiple rapid charge/discharge cycles required, the two BEVs differing thermal management systems might actually become the determining factor in this contest.

You'd definitely save some money driving the Ioniq on this trip (and every other) which many BEV drivers might find significant, particularly in consideration of how much many public DC sites charge per kWh.

="mtndrew1"...I'm not sure how they're going to compete with the Ioniq BEV unless it's very attractively priced...

Attractive pricing is how every affordable BEV/PHEV is currently being sold or leased, though The LEAF, one of the best selling, is still offered at close to the most expensive leases:

http://ev-vin.blogspot.com/2016/07/curr ... d-evs.html

I'm waiting for the Gen Two LEAF myself, but if it turns out to be something similar to either the Bolt or the Tesla 3, I doubt I'll be interested.

GRA wrote:Via IEVS, just for edatoakrun, as he's wondering about how fun to drive the Ionic might be compared to a LEAF on his typical roads:

Hyundai IONIQ Electric First Drive Review

http://insideevs.com/hyundai-ioniq-elec ... ve-review/

...it sounds like an e-Golf with a bigger battery would still be the affordable BEV to beat for driving dynamics.

edatoakrun wrote:BTW, do you have an accurate number for the curb (unladen) weight of the Korea market Ioniq BEV?

JejuSoul wrote: ...According to the graphic above - 1445kg for the Ioniq Electric.
Compares to 1520kg for the 24kWh Leaf, 1538kg for the 24kWh e-Golf and 1624kg for the 60kWh Bolt.

Lighter weight clearly improves the efficiency.

edatoakrun wrote: ...I hope the Ioniq will have ~ the same capacity as the Soul...

I will be even more interested in the weight of the pack, and total vehicle weight.

If Hyundai uses LG cells with ~same density as GM has claimed for the Bolt, and doesn't weigh it down (and inflate the cost) by using an oversized pack, it could have a curb weight of close to 3,000 lbs. (~1360kg)

Meaning it could come close to matching the much smaller i-3 for city/mountain efficiency, and actually be fun to drive.

edatoakrun wrote:As compliance BEV ICEV conversions go the Golf is far from the worst, but its poor efficiency due to being overweight and with poor aero design will not be improved by just stuffing a larger battery into it.

edatoakrun wrote:

GRA wrote:Via IEVS, just for edatoakrun, as he's wondering about how fun to drive the Ionic might be compared to a LEAF on his typical roads:

Hyundai IONIQ Electric First Drive Review

http://insideevs.com/hyundai-ioniq-elec ... ve-review/

...it sounds like an e-Golf with a bigger battery would still be the affordable BEV to beat for driving dynamics.

I suggest you read the review by those who actually saw and drove the Ioniq, rather than the regurgitation of the article at the link you posted. <snip>

The All-New
Hyundai IONIQ Line-Up

Hybrid – Plug-in – Electric

World’s first vehicle platform with three electrified powertrains, making low- to zero-emission mobility accessible to everyone

...
As with many EVs, the acceleration times don't sound particularly quick, but it is the 'in-gear' acceleration that is most impressive. Shorter bursts like pulling away from the lights, nipping out of junctions, or accelerating from 30-50mph are completed extremely quickly, and the Ioniq Electric doesn't struggle at all in this regard. The Hyundai's electric motor has more than enough pulling power to get up steep hills or overtake on a country road. It's range also doesn't plummet as some of its rivals do when sitting at motorway speeds, making this a reasonable car to drive long distances in.
...
The steering doesn't provide much feedback, but it is accurate and responsive, with the driver only needing to take one bite at threading a line through a bend. This adds up to a car that you can have some fun with - for example when driving around some excellent driving roads on the North Wales test route - but one that is more comfortable around town.