Real-world needs of comfort and performance
So why, then, aren’t EVs more popular? Two reasons: range anxiety and price. And in my full week with the Ioniq, this is what I found out about both issues.
The Ioniq has a range of roughly 200 kilometres on a full charge. After picking up the car from Hyundai headquarters and bringing it back to the city (about a 30-km trip), I spent the rest of the week commuting to work, getting groceries and generally bumming around town — basically, driving normally — without a single recharge. This is good, because I don’t have a fancy fast charger at home. Topping up the battery with a couple hours of fast charge at a free station in Toronto to about 80 per cent capacity, I made the trek up to Newmarket for Easter dinner with family, a more than 100-km round trip, and easily breezed into my driveway with about 25 per cent remaining charge. So, unless you make regular trips beyond that — and let’s be honest, many of you probably don’t — the Ioniq is perfectly capable of being your full-time ride, especially if you opt for a quick charger at home.
Ah, but the price. With such expensive batteries, EVs have always had higher stickers than comparable gas-powered cars, and the Ioniq isn’t different. The base model starts at $35,649 and, while there is no price yet for the Limited spec, expect that to be a little over forty grand. While those prices are in line with other electric cars, it’s steep compared with the aforementioned Elantra, which starts at just $15,999.
Don’t forget about the incentives: Quebec will give you an $8,000 credit and B.C. will toss in $5,000, but in Ontario it’s a whopping $14,000 off of the price. That’s great, but it’s still more expensive than its conventionally powered competitors, which is the deciding factor for many people. You really need to want an electric car to justify the added expense. But if you do, the Ioniq is certainly worth a look. It will start hitting dealerships next week.
Judging the Ioniq purely on the basis of transportation, it’s great. And along with the Chevrolet Bolt, Volkswagen e-Golf and a handful of other electrics on our roads, the Ioniq is part of a future of attainable EVs that satisfy a driver’s realworld needs of comfort and performance that seems to be getting closer and closer. But with prices remaining tens of thousands of dollars over gasoline-powered equivalents, that future still has a long way to go.