Ioniq 5 first impressions: An electric Tardis that can power your tools

I tucked my trusty Kona electric in the garage for a week to experience its new stablemate, an AWD Hyundai Ioniq 5 as my ‘daily driver’. Although somewhat constrained by the Melbourne lockdowns, I still managed to clock up several hundred kilometres to enable me to pen my first impressions of it here.

My first conclusion – while the Ioniq 5 is by category a medium SUV, it feels a whole size up inside. This comes from the all new, e-GMP electric-only platform it is built on.

It has a completely flat floor, and the wheels are moved out towards the corners, and the firewall is moved forwards (as the ‘engine’ bay doesn’t need to be as big). That gives the designers a whole lot more interior space to play with – and they certainly made the best of that opportunity.

By moving the drive selector and electric parking brake to the steering column and dash respectively, the usual centre console forward of the seats is gone.

Adding a full glass roof also lets an enormous amount of extra light in, giving a more open and airy feel to the interior. Further adding to the spacious feel is a dash made up of two flat LED screens without the usual shrouding.

By using higher strength materials, Hyundai has also made the front seats less bulky, opening up more space for legroom in the rear seat – aided by the addition of a sliding centre console that can be moved forward to give more legroom for the centre rear passenger.

‘Futuristic feel’ in Ioniq 5

My second conclusion – Hyundai has given the Ioniq 5 a more premium (and futuristic) feel. With angular exterior lines, door handles that fit flush to the doors/pop out as you approach and a light-bar style front with U shaped running lights, the Ioniq 5 attracts a few second looks as you drive by.

It is also absolutely loaded with features – too many to mention in a brief ‘first impressions’ review.

I will therefore leave it to others to describe the Ioniq 5’s long list of them – but will mention the reclining front seats with footrest function, satnav with live traffic updates, wireless phone charging, multiple driver user profile settings that automatically adjust the seats, both ‘park assist’ and ‘remote parking assist’ functions, etc, etc, etc.

My third conclusion – the Ioniq 5 is the sort of car that should appeal to families as it will easily accommodate 4 to 5 adult-sized people plus their luggage. With a smooth ride, big boot space and 1600kg tow capacity – it is easily capable of both the day-to-day family run-around and the long-weekend camping trips towing a caravan or trailer.

It can also recharge on highway DC fast chargers at up to 220kW, meaning a 10 to 80% charge can be done in just under 18 minutes. With a range of 430km for the AWD or 450km for the 2WD, that means you need only stop every couple of hours to recharge, even if towing.

On the topic of power and charging, the Ioniq 5 is also the first BEV to market here with vehicle-to-load (V2L) capacity. This means you can draw 240V AC power from the battery via a special adaptor that comes with the car.

A handy feature for campsites – and a harbinger of what is to come as the CCS charging plug standard develops into offering full vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capacities over the next few years. However, Australia does not get the additional interior AC outlet offered in some other countries.

Another useful feature is when indicating left or right, the relevant side-view camera picture pops up on the driver’s screen to show what’s happening down the side of the car.

As for downsides – I could only find two, both suggesting perhaps that the stylists had a little too much say in the final design. The first is there is no rear window wiper. This may have been sacrificed to giving a clean look to the exterior, but it is slightly annoying when starting off in the morning if the vehicle was left out during a wet night.

The second is that despite the large screen placed in front of the driver, very little of it is used to provide useful information! In fact, the driver’s display suggests that it is optimised to coordinate with the Head-Up Display (HUD) option … which isn’t currently offered with the Ioniq 5 sold here.

Consequently, the speed readout is tucked out of the way in the top left corner and the centre is dedicated to detailed trip information that is of little immediate use.

Annoyingly, you also can’t switch the centre information data section to just show the speed readout as you can in the Kona or Ioniq BEVs. Once you get used to it the speedo is easy to find – but it is a disappointment that better use wasn’t made of the screen.

Where’s that speedo again?

Comparing the Ioniq 5 on offer here to what has been released overseas shows up more than just the missing HUD. We also don’t get the internal V2L socket, solar panel roof option or the more efficient reverse-cycle heat pump. (Australia gets the less efficient resistive element heater).

We do get the heated steering wheel plus heated and cooled front and heated outer rear seats though. Also not offered (at least initially) is the ‘Standard Range’ version with a 58kWh battery.

Summing up: Hyundai has stepped up a gear from their already high bar for EVs.  In the Ioniq 5 they have created a spacious, upmarket feeling, feature-laden full-battery electric vehicle (BEV) that matches, if not betters, its fossil-fuelled rivals on all counts. It also is a worthy new entrant into the most popular vehicle segment in Australia – the ‘medium SUV’.

It is still not without a foible or two though. (But let’s face it – what car isn’t?) Plus, it can be hard to understand the thinking behind choosing what features to include/not include for the Australian version versus those offered in other markets.

By the way, for those wondering about the ‘Remote Smart Parking Assist’- where you can stand outside the car and it will self-park in both parallel and perpendicular situations – unfortunately, in the couple of situations I tried to test it, the car was more nervous than I and it declined to try!

Ioniq 5 pricing and basic details:

Price:

2WD: $77,300 on-the-road (before state-based subsidies)

AWD: $81,500 on-the-road (before state-based subsidies)

Tow bar option: add $1490

Range:

2WD: 451 km

AWD: 430 km

Boot volumes in litres (1 litre = 10 x 10 x 10 cm)

• Seats up: 531 L
• Seats down: 1591 L

Front boot (‘froot’):

• 57L (2WD)
• 24L (2WD)

Dimensions:

• Overall length: 4635 mm
• Overall width:
  • 1890 mm (mirrors in)
  • 2152 mm (mirrors out)
• Overall height: 1605 mm

Battery:

• 72.6 kWh (usable)

Charging:

• 1 phase AC: 7.4kW max. (45 km charged/hr)
• 3 phase AC: 11kW max. (67 km charged/hr)
• DC: 220kW max. (1300 km charged/hr)

Charge port location:

• Right-hand rear

Energy consumption: (WLTP)

• 176 Wh/km

Kerb weight:

• 2WD: 2020 kg
• AWD: 2100 kg

Drive configuration:

• Rear wheel drive – standard
• All Wheel Drive (AWD) – optional

Towing: NB: only Long Range versions rated for towing

• 1600 kg braked/750 kg unbraked.

Performance:

This article has been updated with the correct battery size.