Sometimes the cards just fall into place. In our case, Corvin’s car started having issues with the hybrid battery. We had the battery replaced once already. We started thinking that the car was getting older and maybe it was time to get him a newer car. The wheels turned and before we knew it, we were test driving a new car. The plan was that if we liked the new car, Corvin would get Danelle’s old car.
We are both into efficiency and the environment. But we are also value oriented. This led us to considering an EV as our first choice. We set a basic price limit on ourselves and set out to see what the market had to offer us. I’ve been interested for a while and had a feel for what we wanted. Our two primary contenders were the Nissan Leaf and the Hyundai IONIQ 5.
After chatting with a friend that is familiar with both cars (including owning a Leaf) pointed us strongly towards the IONIQ. Off to the dealer we went for a test drive. As you already knew from the title of this post, we bought a new car, and it is the IONIQ.
We’ve owned it for a few months now, what do I think about the car?
I started with lots of range anxiety. I’ve read about it and been told by other EV practitioners that it is irrational. I’m still a bit unsure but maybe getting over it. We only have one plug on the outside of our current house. I’ll spare you the details, but it doesn’t work with the EV. Okay, it did work for about a day, but the continuous load on the outlet caused other issues with lights on the circuit not working and the GFCI popping even after being replaced. It would be about $800 to install a 240v outlet (with permit) in our current house even being only a feet from the breaker box. Danelle won’t let me install it and we’re planning on moving in the next year.
This means we have no way to charge the car at home. At first, Danelle only wanted to use the free slow charger near the house. This meant the battery was always low for the first month as we wanted to use it, but only received about 18 miles of driving per hour of being plugged in. Eventually we’ve gotten better about using paid charging when very lot to get it back up very quickly. We also found the dealership charger is fast and free.
Personally, I would never purchase this car again. For me, its death by 1,000 cuts. The door lock button does not work if any door is open. This means you can’t lock the doors with the button on the door if you’re getting out. You have to press the door handle on the outside. But again, only if all of the doors are shut first. If you press it before all the doors are shut, it doesn’t work well when they are all shut. So now you have to pull out the key fob and press the button. Ohh, the key fob is GIANT. So large, that I no longer carry it with the rest of my keys. If I’m going to drive the car, I go get the key and only then carry it in my pocket. Worse yet, the metal emergency key if the battery dies is not integrated in the oversized fob. Meaning you should carry an extra key.
The dash has a very large touch screen. This sounds great in practice. In reality, the software developers just filled it with junk like sports scores. Instead of focusing on usability especially while driving, they just threw a crazy amount of stuff on the screen. Even as I’ve used the car more, I still get frustrated trying to switch audio modes. Going from audio on my phone to wanting to surf radio stations basically requires pulling over and studying the touch screen. I think if they had a smaller touch screen, they would have needed to make concise choices. Final example, there are two different ways I’ve found to get to information about the battery. Each section provides different information. Some of this is important for charging, but I can never find it when its important.
Lets talk about the thing that really matters, driving range. The IONIQ 5 SEL AWD that we purchased has an 84 point something KWh battery. That is essentially the size of your “gas tank” and describes how far you can drive. I’ve found in normal conditions on the highway, we get about 3.5 miles per KWh. That means 84 * 3.5 = 294 miles of driving from 100% to 0%. Generally you don’t charge to 100% unless you’re going on a trip and you don’t want to get to 0% either.
Does this mean you can get 294 miles of driving per charge, not even close. Electric cars can charge very fast. Our car can go from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes in perfect conditions. We see ranges near that when fast charging. But going from 80% to 100% takes much longer as the charging slows down to protect the batteries and make them last longer.
At best, you’re going from 80 – 10 percent. This means you’re really using 70% of the batteries at best. 70% of 84KWh is 58.8. That means you’re road tripping with 58.8 KWh of charge at 3.5 miles per KWh. After your first charge on a long drive, you have an effective range of 205.8 miles before you need to charge again. So far, the longest road trip I’ve been in is from St. Louis to Kansas City. That is approximately 225 miles. We had to charge once in the middle of the drive to ensure we made it with enough charge to get around KC.
I know EV cars are better for the environment. Electricity is more efficient than gas when comparing input vs output. When local driving (which is most of what we do), its significantly cheaper than gas. When road tripping, its marginally more affordable than our hybrid. I’ll argue it is not as convenient than gas due to the extra stops required. I would be thrilled with a battery 2x the size we have.
I continue to remind myself that the environmental tradeoff is worth it. For in town driving its great. For road trips, its a mindset shift and some extra time for every trip. Hopefully when its time to replace my car, there will be a lot more choices and I’ll find the right EV for me. Until then, we’ll still take Danelle’s EV as much as we can…
Danelle: Hogan and Sonora both talk about how much they hate my car because the cruise control is different and the locks work different and, and, and… To me it boils down to one thing: our previous 5 cars were all Toyota. The Ioniq is not a Toyota and the displays are different and the functions are different. And things are even more different because it’s also an EV! I guess I came into this expecting to start from zero and learn my new car. Are there some things that bother me about it? Yes. But I’ve found the features that I use regularly and can navigate to them without diverting my attention from driving. My old Toyota barely had Bluetooth calling and otherwise didn’t connect with my phone. It had no touch screen and no map display. The heated seats no longer heated. So, yes, I am very happy with my upgrade.
Hogan and Danelle Haake