Hyundai Ioniq 5: Booking, delivery & ownership experience

Great Range - 500 km+ in the city. 400 km+ including a climb up Khandala Ghat

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TLDR Summary

Let me start by saying Please Read This Fully. But so far, after 40 days and 2350 km, I could not be more happy with the car.

Like

• Drool-worthy looks - I have owned a number of nice cars starting from my Yellow Zen through the BMW X3 and the Tiguan Allspace. But this is by far the best-looking car I have owned
• Fantastic Interiors - The looks are not just skin deep, the interiors are very good looking too, and comparable to the Superb or even products from luxury brands
• Great to Drive - Acceleration may not be as insane as some EVs, but you will never ever feel a lack of power. It is faster to 100 than my X3. There is also virtually no body roll, the car seems better around corners than the X5 I drove in Switzerland, and ride quality is good too!
• Refinement - EVs are all super quiet. But this is much better than the other EVs I have sat in and the combination of quietude and doing what you want the car to do adds to the experience
• Great Range - 500 km+ in the city. 400 km+ including a climb up Khandala Ghat. Theoretical ability to charge from 0-80% in 18 minutes at one of the 3 350 KWH chargers in India. Range Anxiety - what is that?
• Super Low Running Costs - I am averaging under Rs. 1.5 per km
• Spacious - The front seats are great with good under-thigh support, and the amazing anti-gravity mode for the front passenger. The rear seat width and knee room are fantastic, and under-thigh support is better than the X3. Boot space is great too (albeit helped by the lack of a spare tyre)
• The Hyundai App - Have not talked about it much in the review, but it gives you access to the state of charge, statistics relating to every drive, power consumption stats, the ability to change charging modes, smart climate control, and lots of features I have not explored

Things that Could Be Improved

• The Buying Process - Paying the full amount upfront without inspecting your car in your city, and having a temporary registration in your name before you see the car is a process that requires more trust in the system than exists in India
• Nickel and Diming on the Charger Installation - Come on Hyundai, how many people can manage with just 10 metres of free wiring? My 97 m may be high - but you could surely have given 75 m free like MG
• Only White Interiors - They look great, but will likely entail large detailing bills. A saddle brown option like that in my X3 would have been great
• Too Many Alarms - The 80 kmph alarm is much too intrusive (frankly, it should not exist), and the ADAS features are a pain too. There must be a way to turn those off - have not figured that out
• Small Bottle Holders - I use wide 750 ml bottles for water, and can also store a 1l Bisleri bottle next to that in each door of my X3. Here, the 750 ml bottle barely fits in the front and does not fit in the rear door
• Lack of Wireless Car Play and USB C ports- Don't see why that should have been omitted from a car being sold in 2023. Similarly, there are several USB ports, but not even one USB C which will make the car feel outdated in a few years
• Lack of a Spare Tyre Option - Hyundai refused to even countenance selling a space saver. And admittedly with 20" wheels, even a space saver would leave you with no boot space
• Very Complex Menus - The menus in the touch screen are very complex. I have not figured them out as yet. And compared to the iDrive in my X3, the Hyundai menus are very poor indeed

We need a Third Car

As many of you may be aware, my primary car is a BMW X3 20d (F25), which I purchased in January 2017. Even though the car is now getting to nearly 7 years old and 56,000 km, I am quite happy with the car, and content to let it continue as my daily driver for the next few years.

My employer has a car scheme that lets me buy a new car every 4 years on very attractive terms, and when the X3 completed 4 years in 2021, I bought a VW Tiguan Allspace as a replacement for my wife's VW Vento. The Allspace has turned out to be a great buy as well - and is currently running up the miles at a faster clip than any car we have owned in the last two decades. We bought Allspace in March 2021, and thanks to the second wave of COVID-19, it took nearly three months to cross the 1000 km mark. But thanks to a combination of usage (largely chauffeur driven) by my wife, my in-laws (who came to live with us during the lockdowns and often go to visit friends and relatives in the suburbs where they lived prior to Covid), and my son (who has an increasing number of classes), it crossed 11,000 km by March 2022, 23500 km by March 2023, and is now at nearly 33,000 km. Not excessive usage for a car - but with three claimants who often need the car at the same time, we quickly realized that we probably need a third car - or at the very least, a second driver who car ferry my X3 around for when others in the family need it.

The option of making the X3 available for the rest of the family was quickly ruled out - even though I am now no longer finicky about letting a driver handle the car, I often need to head for meetings at short notice, and I was clear that I would need a car available for my use at all times. This was amply demonstrated when our Tiguan unfortunately had its windscreen chipped by a stone sent flying from Bombay's lousy monsoon roads and I found managing without the X3 while the Tiguan went for repairs quite inconvenient. Net result, we decided we needed to buy a third car. This would of course have to be bought without the benefit of my company car scheme - and the thought immediately turned to which car we should buy.

What Car?

I must admit that we have often been confused about which car we want to buy, especially when it comes to cars for the family. Back in 2010, when I bought my Superb, it was a fairly straightforward decision. Luxury cars were ruled out, I wanted an automatic, and hence the only serious contenders were the Honda Accord and the Skoda Superb. Our decision in 2012 was more complex. We started off with a consideration set of the Vento and the City, but because the Vento trim we wanted (Petrol Highline 1.6 AT) was not available, ended up scouring the entire market ranging from the Jazz to the 520D, before going a full circle and picking up our first choice. In late 2016, I was clear that the Superb replacement would be a luxury car, and it ended up as a two-horse race between the Mercedes GLC and the BMW X3 before the mouthwatering discounts that BMW gave in the post-demonetization phase swung the decision in its favor. Our Vento replacement was a more complex process - we started off loving the Kia Seltos DCT, but the long wait periods and the poor crash rating moved it down our selection list. We then test-drove the MG Hector DCT (very comfortable but terrible to drive), and the Innova Crysta 2.8 AT (as a substitute for the Innova Crysta 2.7 AT and the Innova Crysta 2.4 AT both of which were not available to be tested), before settling on the Tiguan Allspace which we once again got at a mouthwatering discount.

And this time round, we already had 2 very similar-sized SUVs which we were going to retain - one with a BS4 diesel power train, and the other a BS6 petrol. And consequently, we started our decision-making process with only one criteria that had more or less been set - that we could not add one more smoke-belching ICE card to Bombay roads. We were clear we wanted to pick up an EV.

Why an EV?

• We already have two great long-distance cruisers - so range anxiety is not something we need to bother about. Everything I have read about EVs and know about physics/chemistry suggests that EVs do materially reduce CO2 emissions.
• Even more importantly, in a city like Bombay, which is where our car will be primarily driven, local particulate emissions are a genuine health hazard, and everything we can do to reduce these helps. EVs are clearly superior to even the best ICE cars in this regard
• I have 4 permanently allotted parking slots and our society allows members to fit an EV-specific meter and wiring to place a charger in one's own slot.
• Peer pressure - we already have about 40-50 EVs in our society, and every day one sees a new person buying an EV
• Driving pleasure - I had driven a colleague's MG ZS EV and found it outstanding to drive

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