Category Archives: Hyundai

My Hyundai Ioniq 5 Test Drive in Izu, Japan

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Today, after a one week test, I returned the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

Yesterday I did an extended test drive to one of my favourite parts of Japan, the Izu peninsula. I often go there for bike rides to take pictures. This time I drove over 440 km, which is pretty long for any drive I do. My longest drive this year until now had been 310 km.

I had a great day. It was a perfect day to enjoy Mt Fuji views and ocean views in Izu and the Ioniq 5 was a great car to do it in, more about that below.

The two concerns that keep people off opting for EVs when buying cars are range anxiety and cost. Izu is not the most well served part of Japan, as far as charging is concerned, and yet I really didn’t have to worry. Even when starting from Tokyo with a battery only charged to around 75% of its capacity, I came back with 30% of charge left after only a quick charge while having a 25 minute coffee and snack break. I charged at a 50 kW fast charger at a Familymart convenience store in Matsuzaki to at least once try out public chargers (previously I only tested charging at home) and it added about 150 km of range in a little over 20 minutes. Given a fast enough charger, the Ioniq can actually charge 5 times faster than that.

I later passed a 180 kW charger, but didn’t use it because I had plenty of battery left to get home and drop off the car tomorrow. Given a suitable charger (e.g. 350 kW), the current model of Ioniq 5 can charge at up to 260 kW, but the fastest chargers available in Japan right now are 220 kW.

On cost, the Ioniq is quite reasonable, when compared to brands such as Audi, Mercedes or Volvo. There are EV subsidies available from the national government and prefectural governments (e.g. Tokyo). Long term, there are substantial savings from the cost of electricity vs. gasoline, especially if you have solar panels on the roof and can generate your own power. A hybrid that gets 18 km/l at 160 yen/liter costs 9 yen/km. A non-hybrid ICE could be double that. An EV that consumes 180 Wh/km at 15 yen/kWh (Tepco FIT rate) costs 2.7 yen/km. At 40 yen/kWh from the standard grid without low cost night time tariff it costs 7 yen/km. That and no annual oil changes, no new spark plugs, etc.

One huge difference between electric cars (BEV) and internal combustion engine cars (ICE) is noise. When you put the foot down, both more or less do the job, but one does it without any fuss at all while the other becomes noisy. The Ioniq impressed me by just how quiet it was throughout (which is an excellent basis for enjoying the Bose speakers that come standard in the Lounge version). Whether you’re taking it easy or pushing the car hard, it just does it quietly, except for a minimal amount of tyre rumble and wind noise. That makes for a very relaxed experience. I don’t think I ever came back from a 13 hour drive feeling as fresh as I did today.

I also loved both the suspension and the seats. The ride is neither too soft nor too hard and the seats stayed comfortable and supportive at all times.

This is a great long distance car. It does everything my 2013 Toyota Prius did, only better and without burning fossil fuels (if you charge it with renewable energy, whose share will only keep increasing from now).

If I had to pick anything I didn’t like, I can only mention the digital rear view mirror (which thankfully can be switched to analog). It’s an LCD monitor in place of the usual center mirror, hooked up to a camera at the back of the car. Every time I looked at it, my eyes had to refocus from objects far away as seen through the windscreen to a monitor only 30 cm from my eyes, resulting in fuzzy recognition for a fraction of a second. Analog rear view mirrors don’t have that issue, as they don’t force your eyes to refocus.

I realize that the Ioniq is too large or too expensive for a lot of people, but the Hyundai Kona and Hyundai Inster are also very capable cars that are smaller and cheaper while using much of the same technology.

After returning the Ioniq 5, I placed an order to buy one. It will arrive next month.

Shopping for an Electric Car in Japan

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It’s time to replace my Prius hybrid with a battery electric vehicle (BEV). Later this month I will be test driving a Hyundai Ioniq 5 for a couple of days to make up my mind.

My only experience with Hyundai so far was an I30 that we had as a rental car in Italy two years ago. It was a compact and not an EV. In 2024 Hyundai was the 5th largest car maker worldwide, selling more cars globally than either Ford or Nissan.

In the EV race, Hyundai reminds me a bit of the Chinese car manufacturers, which (unlike Toyota or VW/Audi) don’t have a huge established base of ICE cars and therefore can move more nimbly on the transition to BEVs, without fear of hurting their existing products. For many buyers of these underdog brands, the BEV will be their first car of that brand, as it would be for me.

I have had two Volkswagens, four Audis, one Honda and two Toyotas as my main cars over the last 44 years (not all of them personally owned, e.g. some were company cars), but for me it was never about the brand but about the features and technology. I loved the Audi inline 5 cylinder engines and the ergonomics of their cars. I switched to Toyota after the last Audi, an A4 2.6 V6 turned out to be a disappointment on fuel economy and reliability.

Now that there are cars that don’t rely on fossil fuel (as hybrids still do 100%), I want to make a move. My new house has solar panels on the roof and a battery, with which I’m largely electrically self-sufficient. I have a 200V socket in the garage for charging at home.

More than 5 years ago, I test drove a Tesla Model 3 (before I knew that Elon was crazy). At the time there were no Japanese BEVs except the Nissan Leaf, which was too small for our needs and and too limited in what it could do (no thermal management for the battery, really?). Years later Mercedes launched their first BEVs in Japan, as did VW with the ID.4 and Audi with the various e-tron models (Q4 e-tron) and finally Toyota and Nissan came up with the Toyota bZ4X and Nissan Ariya.

None of those really appealed to me:

  • The bZ4X looks like an electric RAV4, which I never liked.
  • The Ariya looks better but still too much of an SUV and too expensive.
  • There was much to like about the ID.4, such as its looks and its size (not too small, not too large) but infamous software issues at VW/Audi are a huge turn-off, especially now that they may be dumping in-house in favour of Rivian-sourced tech that may see older models orphaned for updates.
  • Audi: basically same as the ID.4 because the Q4 e-tron is the same platform, only more overpriced.
  • Mercedes – I would kind of avoid them because of people who buy them for status, but their cars are also either not yet based on pure BEV platforms, with all the compromises that brings, or they’re large and very expensive.
  • Volvo: see Mercedes

That leaves:

  • BYD: Great technology, very competitive great prices, but from the PRC, which in a few years may try to invade Taiwan… See Tesla 🙁
  • Hyundai: The Ioniq 5 has been on the market since 2021, has had a model update this year with a bigger battery and many other improvements. It will do over-the-air updates for its computers. DC charging is very fast due to its 800V architecture (usually only found in Porsche and other high end brands). It’s slightly taller than I would prefer but doesn’t look too SUV-ish and is only marginally longer than the Prius. Range is good, prices reasonable and equipment levels attractive. On paper it easily beats cars that cost 2,000,000 yen more, as long as you don’t care about brand image.

I’ll keep you posted 🙂

Next step: Test drive!

Links:
Hyundai Japan website