Leading the charge
Hold fire on your Tesla order and take a look at this new Hyundai. It’s called the Ioniq 5 and it’s rather special.
This is the first car that Hyundai has designed from the outset to be electric and it’s built on a platform that the Korean company calls its Electric Global Modular Platform.
Other Hyundai models will also use it and so will Kia, which is about to launch a similar car to the Ioniq 5 called the EV6.
The Ioniq 5 looks striking in photos and doesn’t disappoint in the metal. But what you can’t tell from a twodimensional image is that the Ioniq 5 is actually a big car. It’s 4.6m long and 1.9m wide, but more interestingly, it has a three metre wheelbase – which is longer than a BMW 5-Series.
As a consequence there’s a lot of legroom in the back.
As with most cars designed to be electric, the Ioniq 5’s batteries are underneath the cabin to keep the centre of gravity low, and because the wheelbase is so long there’s plenty of room for a lot of cells.
The entry level Ioniq 5, which starts at a reasonable £36,995, comes with a 54kwh battery pack and a single 170PS motor that drives the rear wheels. Our £48,145 test car, however, is the top spec Ultimate AWD which has a 72kwh battery and two electric motors that have a combined output of 305PS.
As you can guess from the AWD bit of its name, the second electric motor drives the front wheels.
The Ioniq 5 is an unlikely performance car that does 0-62mph in 5.2sec. What is considerably more relevant is what this car can do in 18 minutes.
Hidden away in the Ioniq 5’s body is an 800 volt charging system. The only other car that has an 800V system is the Porsche Taycan.
This means that you can shove a great amount of energy into the car’s charging system and its batteries without the whole lot going up like a barbecue. This is where those 18 minutes come in – that’s how long it takes to charge the Hyundai from nearly flat to 80%. In five minutes you can add 62 miles of range, which is handy if you’re in a hurry. The car’s maximum range is 268 miles.
The only snag is that you’ve got to find a 350kw charging station, but that will be less difficult in the future. Buyers of the launch edition will get a two-year subscription to the Ionity charging network thrown in.
The Ioniq 5 feels spacious and very relaxing inside. Our test car’s white interior helps with this but so too does the flat floor.
There’s a central armrest that can be slid backward and forward by 140mm, and with it in the rearmost position the driver can slide across and get out of the car on the passenger side. Handy if you’ve misjudged your parking or have got into a tight space.
There’s a small boot at the front that holds 57 litres, and a rather more substantial one at the back with 531 litres.
As you’d expect from a car that looks this modern on the outside, Hyundai provides you with a decent acreage of digital screens. There are twin 12.3in screens that have crisp displays and attractive graphics.
There’s a separate control panel for the heating controls and enough physical shortcut buttons so you can access important functions quickly.
For things like switching on the heated steering wheel and seat warmers you have to tap a few times on the screen.
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is unusual in that it looks like a hatchback from the outside but feels like an SUV to drive. You sit quite high off the ground in comfortable and supportive seats.
And although this model has very impressive performance, the engineers have wisely focused on comfort and given the car a soft ride. There’s very little wind noise and you can barely hear any whine from the electric motors. Progress is quiet and swift.
The old world order is changing. I drove to the launch of this Hyundai in Buckinghamshire in a new Audi Q5 plug-in hybrid.
Next to the Hyundai it already felt old-fashioned, unimaginative and rather dull. Companies like Audi, BMW and Mercedes-benz, so used to being the go-to premium brands, could find themselves put on the back foot by cars like the new Ioniq 5 which offer style, range, performance, fast charging and value.