TL; DR: We love it.
Note: I don't drive, so comments about driver-specific features are based on what my wife, Nancy, has told me.
Why an EV?
The main reason we went to an EV was the cost of gas. Our daughter lives about 75 km. away and last year our gas bill averaged $250/month. Since Trump's war started, gas prices have gone up almost 50 percent, and I don't see them coming down much for quite a while, if they ever do. At the overnight rate of $.06/kwh a round trip to our daughter's costs us $1.80. In our Elantra, that trip would cost about $27. We had to pay for the charger and installation, but the payback period on that is short, probably about six months.
Then there's the cost of maintenance on a gas-powered vehicle, which was running us a couple of thousand dollars a year on average. EVs don't need oil changes and tune ups. They have other costs (increased tire wear is probably the biggest), but that's offset by less maintenance on the brakes because of regenerative braking.
And we aren't spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. BTW, most of our power in Ontario comes from nuclear power plants or hydro, so no greenhouse gas emissions there either.
We considered a hybrid but the fuel savings from a standard hybrid aren't that great given our driving patterns and plug-in hybrids still have most of the drawbacks of an ICE vehicle.
What We Like
The IONIQ has a more comfortable and smoother ride than our Elantra. It's a bit bigger, which was a consideration because we need to be able to easily fit a baby seat into the back. Acceleration is good, even in ECO mode, which is the one Nancy uses most of the time. Being an EV, it's quiet though not completely silent; there is a noticeable whine from the regenerative braking when slowing down. Nancy adapted quickly to using one-pedal driving and she likes the adaptive cruise control and lane keeping features when driving on the highway.
We like having wireless Android Auto, which we use instead of the built-in navigation, mostly because Nancy is used to it. (We will use the built-in navigation if we need to find chargers, though we haven't needed to do that yet.) There are more USB ports than on the Elantra, which is good. The IONIQ has a glove compartment and a rear windshield wiper, features that seem to be missing from most other EVs we considered. Hyundai has thankfully kept some buttons and knobs for the climate control and infotainment system. We have yet to explore all the features available through the screen interface; there are many more than on the Elantra.
What we don't like
The sound system is just OK. We had to adjust the equalization as the default sound was rather thin and trebly. I'll fiddle with that soon to see if I can punch it up a bit. We mostly listen to SiriusXM and at low volume; it may sound better when cranked up a bit.
The back lift gate is heavier than that on the Elantra and is difficult to close with one hand. We don't have the powered lift gate and I now understand why people want it.
The MyHyundai BlueLink app is not great. It does give you control over some car functions but the reporting features are pretty basic. I've thought about getting an OBD dongle, but will hold off until EV Dashboard has an Android version.
I don't like the pop out feature of the door handles. Nancy and I differ on that one so I'll just have to live with it.
What we miss having
Some of the features in the Premium trim, which was out of our price range, are pretty glitzy and not to our taste (coloured ambient lighting, sunroof). Others, like the powered lift gate, would be nice to have.
The only missing feature that I consider essential is vehicle to load (V2L), which lets you use the car's big battery to power external devices (a shop vac, for example) from a standard outlet in the car. We don't have that. Hyundai does sell a V2Ladapter, and I will probably buy one at some point. We have had a few multi-day power outages and having the ability to run our freezer or fridge from the car's battery would be good.
That will do for now. I may post an update in a few months after we've had more time with the car.
No comments:
Post a Comment