Hyundai Ioniq lacking some power but fun to drive
Hybrids have been on the market since the Toyota Prius arrived in 1999, but in those 18 years, few have earned the adjective likeable.
The 2017 Hyundai Ioniq is the exception that proves the rule.
Smartly designed, stitched together very well and — despite not being the most powerful hybrid on the road — fun to drive.
Perhaps the best part of the Ioniq is it doesn’t beat you over the head with its green-ness the way some do, with their polarizing styling, unique shift levers or intrusions into cargo and passenger space.
Sit in the Ioniq and its hybrid nature might escape you, at least till you turn on the power and see the battery-level indicator on the dash.
As with the best of its rivals, the Ioniq is purpose-built to be a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid and an EV. That’s allowed designers to integrate the bulky battery into the car and minimize its impact on interior space.
The dashboard is attractively designed, with a pleasing combination of materials and soft-touch in the right places. Controls are intuitively placed and fall easily to hand.
Seats are comfortable and leg room, head room and shoulder room are all excellent, with each sacrificing only a bit for rear seat passengers. The 750 litres of cargo space in the trunk is larger than Prius (unless a Prius buyer orders the tire repair kit instead of a spare tire).
About the only concession you suffer with Ioniq is if you move up to the EV. In that car, the size of the drive battery is such it mandates losing the independent rear suspension in favour of a more space-saving coupled torsion-beam design.
In the other varieties, you get a multi-link rear suspension to help keep the rear planted in spirited driving. Which you might find yourself doing a lot: the low centre of gravity and distribution of weight from front to rear make Ioniq a fun car to toss around.
Notice I haven’t yet mentioned fuel economy? That’s because the fuel economy isn’t the main entree of the story, it’s the gravy on the side. But it’s pretty good gravy.
The official numbers beat the Prius, with Natural Resources Canada pegging the hybrid at 4.2, 4.0 and 4.1 litres per 100 kilometres city, highway and combined respectively.
In that way, the Ioniq is an outlier among hybrids, which typically get better fuel economy in the city — where you get more regenerative braking and electric propulsion — than the highway.
The Ioniq hybrid features a 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine, running in the Atkinson cycle, which is characterized by short intake and compression strokes and long expansion stroke. It sacrifices power density at the altar of fuel efficiency. It’s an acceptable tradeoff when you have the power of an electric motor to add torque.
The electric power comes from a 32 kilowatt, permanent magnet electric motor and a 1.56 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion polymer battery.
The plug-in uses a 45 kilowatt battery and 8.9 kilowatt-hour battery, while the EV, currently limited primarily to the three rebate providing provinces (Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec), uses an 88 kilowatt motor and 28 kilowatt-hour battery providing 118 horsepower.
Ioniq starts at $24,299 and comes fairly well-equipped at the base price, with heated seats, rearview camera and a seven-inch touchscreen display.
For $2k more, you add keyless entry and start and heated rear seats and a heated steering wheel.
The Limited features autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, leather seating surfaces and wireless phone charger. Its price is $29,749.