Don’t hit the Monaro! How not to auto-park in the Hyundai Ioniq 5

A few days of driving Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 gave me a chance recently to try out its auto-park feature.

I’d been wondering what the little button on the far left was, and after a chance encounter with a fellow EV owner learned that Ioniq 5 comes with an auto-park feature.

After digging into the car’s manual, I found that auto-park is very cool, but only when it works.

In the short time I had to test it, I also found that auto-parking can be a bit of a hit and miss affair – although thankfully not literally.

The first time I tried it, it worked perfectly next to a run-of-the-mill Camry. The car took a few careful turns back and forth until it is positioned itself to park exactly between the lines.

Unfortunately, I forgot to video it, which is a shame because when the owner walked up to his Camry as I drove away I thought to myself: “That was the most interesting thing that has happened to your car this week and you missed it.”

To make autopark work you need to drive slowly around the car park and press the Auto Park camera button on the dash, and then the car will look for a suitable place to park while you drive.

When it finds one, it displays a stop signal. You stop it, and it shows a couple of options for where it thinks it could park for you. You then press park, get out of the car and you press the button on the key fob and watch the car park.

The second time I tried it, the car decided it wanted to park next to a Holden Monaro. I immediately thought this was probably not a great idea, but the owners had just gone into the shop so I gave it a go.

The car hesitated on the first turn and so did I. A passer-by stopped and I remarked, “I think it is scared of hitting the Monaro. I would be too!”