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The day the 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 arrived in my driveway, I tweeted that it was the most attractive vehicle I'll drive this year, even though I have 44 weeks of cars left to test. After a week at the helm, my opinion hasn't changed. Hot diggity dog, this thing looks fantastic inside and out. That'd be enough, but the Ioniq 5 is also a joy to pilot, as plush as anything else in the class, and impressively well equipped, too.
But that same week has revealed the kind of annoyances that would drive me bonkers if I put an Ioniq in my driveway. These issues are so minute you'll think I'm a lunatic for being bothered, yet I also find them so glaring I'm left wondering how they heck they made it out of Hyundai's design and engineering centers. Do they ruin the Ioniq 5? Not the in the least – this is an excellent EV. But they're annoyances nonetheless.
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Gallery: 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5: Review
- Exterior Color: Digital Teal
- Interior Color: Gray
- Wheel Size: 20-inch
Let me just say it again: the Ioniq 5 is probably the most attractive car I'll drive this year. I love everything about the design. The front is squat and wide, with a slit for the headlights and a black “grille” that sits just above a wide, silvery shield of trim that also lights up at night. The lines on the hood are sharp and sculpted, but unfussy. In back, the eight-bit taillights are a delight – on more than a few occasions, I just stood behind the Ioniq locking and unlocking it to see the oversized pixels fire. The dot-matrix housing span sits above its own silvery trim piece, mirroring the front of the car.
Cladding surrounds the bottom of the car, kicking upward on the rear bumper and at each door, with slashes on the wheel arches that mirror the saw blade wheels. This could have been offensive – to hell with the SUV-ification of cars like the Ioniq 5, which are only a millimeter removed from a traditional hatchback – but the silver finish is less visually heavy and provides a sharp contrast to the body color.
The 5's profile is its best angle, highlighted by front and rear overhangs that remind me of my 2006 Mini. They're impressively short at both ends, while the wheels exist at the extreme limits of the vehicle's body. If anything, the Ioniq 5 does the classic bulldog stance better than any of today's Minis. A sharp shoulder line extends from the rear end and meets a similar element that surges up from the bottom of the rear wheel arch and, along with an aggressively raked D-pillar, gives the sense that the Ioniq is always moving. It's all brilliant and anyone that thinks otherwise can shut up, because I won't have it.
Critiques? I can think of only one, and it has to do with Hyundai's muted color palette. It's as expressive as a doorknob, when this car's body is begging for a shade to show off its lines. Give me lime green, starburst yellow, or candy apple red – this design deserves more.
Similarly, the Ioniq's interior is only available in gray or black. I normally advise against lighter shades, but the gray better shows off the attractive patterning on the leatherette upholstery and the slight contrast in the seat piping. It’s a better match to the white, Apple-like surround on the Mercedes-inspired digital cluster, too, which marries a gauge cluster and touchscreen in a single slab. Build quality is high, and all the materials feel solid and rich.
- Seating Capacity: 5
- Seating Configuration: 2 / 3
- Cargo Capacity: 27.2 / 59.3 Cubic Feet
Like the Volkswagen ID.4 and Ford Mustang Mach-E, the first thing that greets you when opening the Ioniq's front doors is the immense space. The flat floor and lack of a traditional transmission tunnel make the front row feel wide open. A center console juts up from between the seats, with a huge cubby, two cupholders, and USB-A inputs, but there's enough space Hyundai could get away with a front bench if it wanted. Joining that huge stowage area is an ample glove box and healthy door pockets. Trunk space is adequate at 27.2 cubic feet (and a max of 59.3), swallowing a large golf bag with room to spare.
| Headroom, Front/Rear | Legroom, Front/Rear | Cargo Volume | |
| Hyundai Ioniq 5 | 39.1 / 37.5 Inches | 41.7 / 39.4 Inches | 27.2 / 59.3 Cubic Feet |
| Ford Mustang Mach-E | 38.9 / 39.3 Inches | 43.3 / 38.1 Inches | 29.7 / 59.7 Cubic Feet |
| Kia EV6 | 39.0 / 38.0 Inches | 42.4 / 39.0 Inches | 24.4 / 50.2 Cubic Feet |
| Tesla Model Y | 41.0 / 39.4 Inches | 41.8 / 40.5 Inches | 30.2 / 76.2 Cubic Feet |
| Volkswagen ID.4 | 40.6 / 37.9 Inches | 41.1 / 37.6 Inches | 30.3 / 64.2 Cubic Feet |
The front chairs have a low seating position and right-sized bolsters that make long journeys less arduous. Overall support for aggressive cornering is absent, but that's okay – after all, the seats are still comfortable and the Ioniq 5 is a lover, not a fighter. The Limited trim does add a neat Relaxation function that includes a pop-out footrest for the driver's seat. It's about as plush as the Max Recline seat in the Ford F-150 when it comes to catching some Zs.
The backseats are similarly spacious, with huge amounts of leg and headroom. I wouldn't hesitate to put three adults back there on a two-hour journey. Sizable, wide-opening doors make ingress and egress easy, while Hyundai's restraint with the Ioniq's beltline and roofline mean there's plenty of light. A standard panoramic roof adds to the airy sensation.
Because EVs don't have gas engine to hide things, control of road and wind noise is a high priority. Hyundai handles this with standard laminated glass on the front and rear doors and acoustic glass on the windshield. There's no active noise cancellation or other trickery, mainly because it's unnecessary. The Ioniq 5 is spookily quiet at speed, with virtually no wind noise and only modest amounts of tire roar from the 255/45/20 Michelin Primacy all-seasons.
Ride quality is on par with the segment leader, the Volkswagen ID.4. The Ioniq struggles a bit to maintain its balance on extremely pothole-ridden roads (tis the season in southeastern Michigan) but run-of-the-mill expansion joints and patch jobs are little match for the well-isolated Ioniq 5.
- Center Display: 12.3-inch Touchscreen
- Instrument Cluster Display: 12.3-inch
- Wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto: No
It's in the tech department where the Ioniq's annoyances crop up. Its 12.3-inch touchscreen runs the same infotainment software as any other modern Hyundai or Kia, so you'll enjoy beautiful graphics, sharp responses, and a logical selection of menus and options. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are still absent, of course, and it's perplexing that this is still a problem on a new vehicle. The bigger woe comes when you want to do little things, like turn on the heated seats.
Despite physical climate controls that match any other Hyundai product, there is no hard button for the seat heater, ventilation, or heated steering wheel. You'll need to swipe left from the home screen, find the appropriate icon, tap it, then drag a slider up or down only to realize you've gone too far and need to make another adjustment. This is two or three steps too many while parked and it's downright perilous at highway speeds. I don't understand this decision when you consider the amount of real estate below the touchscreen.
Missing and poorly labeled features aside, the Ioniq 5 claws back points for merely being well equipped. Everything is standard on the Limited trim (and there are no options on the base SE or SEL), so customers need only choose an interior and exterior color and sign on the dotted line. The Ioniq also introduces one novel feature that's already made waves in the US market.
Every Ioniq 5 comes standard with vehicle-to-load (or V2L) capability. Not unlike Ford's ProPower Onboard system, the Ioniq 5 has two ports that deliver up to 3.6 kilowatts of power (more than anything but the range-topping ProPower setup on the hybrid-powered F-150). There's a conventional three-prong plug under the rear bench, while a 120-volt adapter for the exterior charge port allows owners to draw power from there, too.
- Motor: Dual Permanent-Magnet Synchronous
- Output: 320 Horsepower / 446 Pound-Feet
- Transmission: Single-Speed Automatic
The dual-motor Ioniq 5 is the most powerful member of the family, with its twin permanent-magnet synchronous motors and 77.4-kilowatt-hour battery pack producing combined output figures of 320 horsepower and 446 pound-feet of torque. Hyundai doesn't publish zero-to-60 numbers, but the range-topping Ioniq 5 broadly mirrors the dual-motor Ford Mustang Mach-E with the extended range battery, both in terms of output (346 hp and 428 lb-ft) and weight (4,662 pounds for the Ioniq and 4,838 pounds for the Mach-E).
And yet the Ioniq feels slightly slower. Most estimates I've seen indicate a 5.1-second sprint. That's down three-tenths on the Mach-E and Tesla Model Y Long Range, but it's a fair bit quicker than the dual-motor Volkswagen ID.4 (295 hp, 229 lb-ft, and 5.8 seconds to 60). Still, the surge of instant-on torque makes the Ioniq feel nippier than the vast majority of similarly sized combustion-powered crossovers, so if you’re coming from gas, you’ll hardly notice the relative lack of pace.
But even relative to the sedate ID.4, the Ioniq does little to put you in the mood for performance. Sport Modes in the Mach-E and ID.4 elicit a pleasant, if hardly aggressive, acceleration sound that's almost absent in the Ioniq 5. There's little acoustical excitement that comes from pegging the go pedal in this Hyundai, and I can't fathom why. The standard pedestrian warning sound is appetizing enough, so it's not like Hyundai doesn't know how to make good noises.
Likewise, the Ioniq 5 is a competent but uninspiring handler. The steering loads up nicely and you can feel the low center of gravity in the way the weight loads in corners, but the soft suspension tuning and Michelin Primacy Tour all-season rubber limit the ultimate handling ability. Drivers that value agility in their EV will be happier with a Mach-E.
The friction brakes perform well, but with four different levels of regen including a strong one-pedal setting, I rarely used them. When the mechanical stoppers did engage, pedal feel was predictable and easy to modulate with little low-speed grabbiness. That makes the Ioniq easier to manage in parking lots or in stop-and-go traffic.
- Driver Assistance Level: SAE Level 2 (Hands-On)
- NHTSA Rating: Not Rated
- IIHS Rating: Not Rated
The Ioniq 5 Limited comes with every active safety system in the Hyundai catalog as standard. That includes the latest version of Highway Driving Assist, HDA II, and includes an automatic lane-change function. Tap the turn signal while HDA II is active and the Ioniq will move in the desired direction if the lane is clear. But this functionality is a little too deliberate in its actions, moving over in a more restrained manner than you'll find in a Mercedes-Benz product with similar technology. It was almost always easier and faster to change lanes myself.
Beyond the lane-change function, the Ioniq 5 and HDA II are a great match, with the active safety system managing lane intrusions predictably and keeping the EV well-positioned in its lane – it’ll default to the center, but if an adjacent vehicle intrudes on its own dotted lines, the Ioniq 5 will compensate slightly to maintain safe distance. Activation remains a cinch, too. Select a speed for the adaptive cruise control and HDA II comes online – drivers can deactivate it and rely on the standard ACC system at the touch of a button. But I do have some safety concerns beyond the onboard technology.
The Ioniq 5 does not offer a rear windshield wiper, and after less than 100 miles of driving on wet, salty roads, I could barely see out the back. I imagine this will be an even bigger issue in dusty environments. Also, while the Ioniq's pop-out door handles are neat, they don't stow away unless the car is locked. Forget to tap the keyfob and the Ioniq 5 essentially advertises that it and the items inside are open for the taking. The Ioniq isn’t alone in this flaw, but it’s a real safety concern that deserves to be called out.
- EV Range: 256 Miles
- Efficiency (MPGe): 110 City / 87 Highway / 98 Combined
- Max Charge DC Charge Rate: 250 Kilowatts
The dual-motor Ioniq, available in SE, SEL, and Limited trim, has an EPA-estimated range of 256 miles. Opt for a single motor and you'll (eventually) have the choice of a standard or extended-range battery pack – the former is only available with the SE trim and can cover 220 miles on a charge, while the latter is available with all three trims and packs 303 miles worth of electrons. The EPA also rates my Limited AWD at 110 mpge city, 87 highway, and 98 combined.
Hyundai future-proofed the Ioniq 5 by installing an 800-volt electrical architecture. This allows a peak recharge speed of 250 kilowatts on a compatible DC fast charger – the Ioniq 5 with the extended range battery can go from 10 to 80 percent charge in just 18 minutes. If you can't find a DC charger that can muster the peak recharge rate, don't fret, because a 150-kilowatt charger will take an estimated 25 minutes to go from 10 to 80 percent. If you do most of your charging at home (which, let's face it, is the case with most customers), a 240-volt home charger will zap the 77.4-kilowatt-hour battery to 100 percent in 6.75 hours.
Here's how the Ioniq shakes out relative to its main competitors:
| EV Range: | Charge Time @ 240V | Charge Time @ DC | |
| Hyundai Ioniq 5 Limited | 256 Miles | 6.75 @ 10.9 kW (10-100 Percent) | 18 Minutes @ 250 kW (10-80 Percent) |
| Ford Mustang Mach-E (Extended Range AWD) | 270 Miles | 10 Hours @ 10.5 kW | 45 Minutes @ 150 kW (10-80 Percent) |
| Kia EV6 GT-Line AWD | 274 Miles | 7.2 Hours @ 11 kW | 44 Minutes @ 240 kW |
| Nissan Ariya Platinum AWD | 265 Miles | N/A @ 7.2 kW | N/A @ 130 kW |
| Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD | 330 Miles | 11 Hours @ N/A | N/A @ 250 kW |
| Volkswagen ID.4 AWD | 245 Miles | 7.5 Hours @ 11kW | 38 Minutes @ 125 kW (5-80 Percent) |
- Base Price: $43,600 + $1,245 Destination
- Trim Base Price: $51,845
- As-Tested Price: $55,745
Prices for the Ioniq 5 start at $44,895 (including a $1,245 destination charge) for a rear-drive SE with the extended-range battery and 303-mile range. A standard-range battery will be available in the spring of 2022, driving the Ioniq's base price down to $40,945. The mid-range SEL starts at $47,145, while the Limited demands $51,845. A dual-motor all-wheel-drive option costs $3,500 on the SE and SEL and $3,900 on the Limited. Beyond that lone option, the only other choice consumers need to make is which of the six no-cost exterior colors and two interior shades they want.
Out the door, my $55,745 Ioniq 5's price is broadly average for the segment. Here's how the it shakes out relative to the competition.
| Trim Base Price: | |
| Hyundai Ioniq Limited | $54,500 + $1,245 Destination |
| Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium (Extended Range/AWD) | $57,800 + $1,100 Destination |
| Kia EV6 GT-Line AWD | $55,900 + $1,215 Destination |
| Nissan Ariya Platinum AWD | $58,950 + $1,175 Destination |
| Tesla Model Y Long Range | $60,900 + $1,200 Destination |
| Volkswagen ID.4 Pro S AWD | $48,940 + $1,195 Destination |
Hyundai's pricing for the Ioniq is certainly competitive. But whether you can find a dealer that wants to sell you one at MSRP is another question. There isn’t a single Ioniq 5 for sale in the great state of Michigan, while the nearest dealer – Classic Hyundai in Mentor, Ohio – is slapping several thousand dollars in markups on its cars. Counting a pre-added $1,000 paint treatment, an Ioniq 5 Limited like mine is currently listed at Classic for $63,930, over $8,000 more than the car I drove. The lack of availability, odd missteps, and dealer greed make it hard to recommend you run out and buy an Ioniq 5.
The good news is that eventually supply will catch up with demand, causing dealers to stop with their price gouging. And hopefully, Hyundai addresses the niggles mentioned here. When that happens, I'll recommend the Ioniq 5 wholeheartedly as my favorite car in the segment.
Ioniq 5 Competitor Reviews:
- Ford Mustang Mach-E: 9.1 / 10
- Kia EV6: 9.2 / 10
- Nissan Ariya: Not Rated
- Tesla Model Y: Not Rated
- Volkswagen ID.4: 8.8 / 10
FAQs
What Is The Range Of The Hyundai Ioniq 5?
The 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5's maximum range is 303 miles with the extended-range battery and rear-wheel drive. Dual-motor all-wheel-drive models lower that figure to 256 miles. Eventually, a standard-range battery model will be available with 220 miles of range.
Is The Hyundai Ioniq 5 An SUV?
Kind of? The 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 has a traditional SUV shape, but its ride height and seating position set it apart. It sits higher than a conventional hatchback, but it lacks the commanding view of an SUV.
How Much Does The Hyundai Ioniq 5 Cost?
The 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 SE starts at $44,895 (including a $1,245 destination charge). The SEL and Limited trim start at $47,145 and $51,845, respectively. All-wheel drive is available for $3,500 on the SE and SEL and $3,900 on the Limited. An SE with a smaller battery pack will be available soon and should drive the price below $40,000. All Ioniq 5s are eligible for a $7,500 federal income-tax credit.
