Well we picked up the Ioniq PHEV, 1800 mile RT to pick it up and my daughter really likes it for the most part, from Greeley CO. Unfortunately she didn't really get to use the EV on her trip home, well except for the first 20 miles in EV, the rest was strictly ICE, well I guess except for coasting like our '07 regular Prius, but we did very little coasting on our mostly flat drive.
She got the SEL even though she really wanted the sunroof and better stereo in the Limited but really didn't want leather, so Hyundai's loss IMO. She was willing to spend more but wouldn't be forced to get leather.
It's a nice-looking hatchback, quite similar to the Prius Prime but as I've mentioned before, without the Prius stigma that some people have. Oh our trip home it got 52MPG, which is the EPA for combined and I guess for averaging 78 mph for a good part of the trip and lower 70s for the rest, it probably isn't too shabby. For comparison, our '07 regular Prius got 46 MPG which again isn't too shabby for a 14-year old car.
The price was sticker as they are pretty hard to find, less $3k for signing up for Hyundai financing which we can pay off with no penalties after 6 months, no other discounts and it actually had ~$500 worth of fluff on the Monrey sticker we were stuck with, carpeted floor mats, some sort of shelf in the boot, a cargo cover, etc. Oh and we should be able to qualify for the full $4543 federal tax rebate because its a PHEV based on battery size.
She hasn't really driven it enough in EV mode to really verify if it will achieve it's 29 mile EV range but it may end up more, maybe a bit less on freeway speeds.
Like the new? Prius's it lacks a rear windshield wiper which I never really noticed on either but think it's kind of chincy, all in the name of aero?(99% sure it's all in the name of cutting costs!).
It doesn't have as much room in the hatch as our '07 Prius but it may be comparable to the Prime. It has all the safety features which is nice for a younger driver and older as well. It's lane keep assist works quite well and will basically self drive the vehicle as long as you rest your hands on the steering wheel, between that and it's adaptive cruise again it's almost self-driving once on a freeway. I realize it's probably nothing like a Tesla that can change lanes and such but still a lot more than I've ever driven. It's got a nice backup camera but no parking assist which is reserved for the limited. It's got a Prius-sized gas tank, giving it a advertised 620 mile range with a full charge.
As I've mentioned before I'm not too found it lacks heat in the EV mode and therefor has no morning warmup, well unless you count the 3yr free Blue Link where you can start the car from your cell phone, assuming it's outside and not in your closed garage.
Today we'll be driving it 35 miles across town so it should be a good chance to see exactly how far it will go on a 100% charge, gas all the way home as we won't have an opportunity to plug in once there.
Unless it had been noticeably cheaper than a Prius Prime I personally would have gone the Prius route but it does look stylish and when it's just been washed and dried it looks very nice with it's jet black shinny paint, of course even a tiny rain and it looks like most black cars, not so good IMO.
Some j1772 specs I found out by testing, which may be noted somewhere but I haven't had time to look.
It's max speed is just like our old Leafs, 16a@240v and that 16a also holds true for 120v charging although the very nice included adjustable 120v EVSE maxes out at 12a. It has 8/10/12a settings all adjustable by a hidden black rubber push button on the back of the sharp-looking EVSE. It's kind of hokey in that it won't let you adjust it once plugged into the car, you must unplug it from the car and then adjust it. Another charging quirk is that after you plug in the J1772 it locks it in place, for theft they say, even if the car is unplugged, say in a garage, to unplug the j1772 connector you must push the door unlock buttons, no EV unlock button I could find anywhere. A kinda nice feature is when you plug the J1772 connector in the car the dash displays the current SOC% and tells you approx how long it will take to charge, note it's smart enough to change that time depending on voltage and amperage and will change if you bump your EVSE up or down even by an amp, unlike our Leafs that give you one range for 120v and 2 for 240v, the Ionic seems to be more precise and I like that. Kind of another quirk is while the gas cap locks and requires a unlock button to open, not the EV charging door, all you have to do is push that and it pops open. Maybe they figure no one will be stealing your juice out of the J1772 connector? Still, for vandalism I might like it to lock, both gas and charging door and much of the body panels are plastic, not sure how I feel about that.
The vehicle has heated but not cooled seats and no heated steering wheel, although the European and Aus/NZ spec has both heated steering wheel and cooled seats.... Come on Hyundai, give us the goods! Again if the Limited had had either, my daughter might have opted for it and just tried to find some decent seat covers.
Lastly, we almost didn't get it. We reserved it site unseen and believe me it wasn't love at first sight. My daughter really disliked/still does to a degree, the very poor view out of the rearview mirror. Not so much for backing up but just for looking out the rearview mirror when driving forward. Due to the very sloped rear window and placement of the rearview mirror you can hardly see what's behind you, all you really see is the grill of the car behind you, nothing higher up. Note if your a real shorty this might be better because of the angle but for anyone over 5'6"? it can be a real problem if you like looking out the rearview mirror. This was almost a deal-breaker for her. In the end, she started getting a little used to it but I also mentioned we could look for a secondary rearview mirror to mount on the dash, somehow attaching to the back of the extended above the dash infotainment screen. In Europe they(or at least did) place the rearview mirror on the dash, this affords a better view out the back, assuming no one is sitting in the back rear seat in which case you may only see them. Anyone else ever run into this problem on this or another vehicle? I see a similar thing with our Prius but my biggest gripe with our Prius and it's rearview mirror is on more than one occasion I've contemplated ripping it off the window! See it hangs down so low it's a MAJOR blind spot for me, especially for cars coming down a freeway onramp, it totally blocks the car, for me the mirror is really an issue, luckily I don't drive it all that much, mostly on long trips out of town where I don't have to contend with the onramp blind spot. Back in '07 when we bought it new I actually thought of moving the mirror up higher, towards the ceiling to get it more out of my line of site, that or I also thought of moving it to the dash but as we occasionally have 5 people in the Prius, I thought that might be an issue too. Well enough about the mirrors other than to say the Ionic mirror may be an issue for you too, if on the taller side. Not the blind spot issue like our Prius, more a visibility issue for looking through the mirror.