2023 Hyundai IONIQ 5 EV | First Drive Review | Hyundai's new Electric Car is finally here! | autoX

We are seeing new electric vehicles all the time and at the auto Expo, which included last month, Hyundai announced their new flagship EV in India, the ioniq 5.. They already have the Kona, but the ionic 5 is based on a new architecture, offers more in terms of range offers more in terms of space. So how is it like? What do we think of its design? How does it drive youll find out everything in this video foreign Music was a car called The Pony, and the Ionix design is a recreation of that. It gets a lot of inspiration from the original Pony and, I have to say, I think, its a stunning looking vehicle, starting with the matte paint, and you get this black panel at the front very interesting, LED headlights. You also get a very interesting active bumper here. This part, these two flaps are open when the car needs Cooling and they close when it doesnt need cooling For Better aerodynamic efficiency. Of course, you also get these stripes across the car and thats an interesting visual touch. What I really like, though, are these 20 inch wheels? They look fantastic, theyre very complicated design, but they look great and on EVS we are seeing larger and larger wheel and tire sizes. This is running a 24 55 section Tire 20 inches. This gives you a lot of stance. These are very wide and it make the car look really uh Butch on the road really stand nicely.

The door handles go flush, they only open when you unlock the car. As you can see here, work very well and I think thats a great touch. The sides also work very well the Glass House, black detailing on the wheels on this pillar. Here, on the doors I mean, all of this is really well tied together, you can even see black detailing down below and while Hyundai calls this an SUV, I think its more of a hatchback with a very high ride height, even when loaded its got 163 millimeters Off ground clearance, which is by probably refers to this as an SUV and on the other hand, it also is a single motor power plant. So its rear wheel drive only thats something well come back to rear wheel, drive lots of power lots of torque. Well. That could be a lot of fun Ill. Tell you more about it when we drive the car coming to the back, and I think this is probably my favorite part of the cars design, these unique tail lights with the ionic 5 badging, the sharply cut off rear and again those stripes that you saw at The front and the sides, I think its a design thats been done very well, its Unique. It looks Cutting Edge and yet looks conventional enough. That doesnt make you wonder if the car is weird, I would have to say. I think the car looks really cool, but its even cooler when we get to the inside of the ionic 5, so lets find out with the electric power plant.

You also get added practicality, so you get a frunk here where you can store about 50 odd details of luggage, soft bag or your gym bag, or a couple of soft bags of your sports equipment. All that can go in here now when it comes to the actual boot lets, go and have a look at how that is you get electric tailgate opening, of course, and its a pretty capacious boot. You get a lot of storage space. In fact, with the second row folded, you get almost 1600 liters of storage space, which is massive. So if youre looking to do a airport run, I think the ionic 5 will serve you quite well. Now the Interiors of the ionic 5 also bring about a lot of innovation and value addition to typical car Interiors. Once you get in, you will not recognize. This is a Honda intrigger. This is a clean sheet designed absolutely new. You get a touchscreen panel for your HVAC controls. You get some buttons and Im really happy to see. We still get a volume knob you get driving mode on the steering wheel. You get a lot of controls, including the Ada support uh. The ionic 5 gets level to a dash which will include automatic, braking, uh Lane, assist and and a lot other functions which can be very useful when it comes to design. I think the ionic 5s Design interior wise is also fantastic. You get this Dash, which is soft touch and parts of the dash and parts of the doors use.

Biodegradable materials, part of the seat. Construction is done by recycled plastic bottles, so all that is adding on to the automotive system to clean up our environment lot more. The two screens look very futuristic, theyre, very high resolution. You get wired Apple, carplay and Android, auto thats a disappointment. I would have preferred uh if we could get wireless. You also get an eight speaker, both sound system. That sounds really good, which is also due to the fact that there is virtually no engine noise, so that enhances the audio uh a lot. All of this is also it has the connectivity with their app. You can charge the card. You can check the status of the car. You can check where the nearest charging stations are all of the functions for a dash can be turned on turned off from here. Interestingly, the gear level which you see is missing has been moved here next to the steering wheel, so that what that does is opens up the space you get a fully flat floor, thats a benefit of having an EV and you get a console, thats movable. You can move it front, you can move it back and its a massive space along with the cubbyhole. Here you get many charging points and the glove box is particularly really a nice piece of design because, as you will see, it opens up like a drawer and is pretty big. It can store a lot of stuff, so thatll be good for practicality.

I quite like the seats you also get. This adjustable leg rests that you can use. Now you can see it in the drivers seat. You can mount them up, I mean maybe, when youre out, camping or youre stuck in traffic, especially for the passenger, you can always recline your seat, put your feet up and get more comfortable. The one fear I have about the interior, though, is that its very light in color its almost a silverish white seats doors. Everything not I mean not the dashboard, but the seats in the doors and with the doors you know, youre having to grab the handle. Every time you close them, I think this is going to get really dirty in our conditions very quickly. So if youre gon na look at the ionic five make sure you have either a dry cleaning guy on standby or youre eager to clean, the stair is also a nice touch. It feels the right size. It feels very nice to touch. I really like the haunt pad its got, this recyclable material feel, which feels quite good overall, I would say, A very handsome design of the Interiors very plush. It feels nothing like under it feels much more upmarket and I think people are really going to appreciate what the interior offers the rear seats have an interesting touch. Let me tell you about that, and before I finish, the sunroof that you see here is a fixed glass roof panel.

It doesnt open only thing you can do is close, that I dont think thats a bad thing, especially in our country, where people love to stand out of a sunroof in a moving car, which can be very dangerous. So I dont mind that at all but yeah that could be a factor for many of you but lets get into the rear seat. And let me just quickly show you the functions there. Music, I think the rear seat is also a really nice place to be in the ioniq 5 because of a lot of factors, one you get dedicated events built into the pillars. You also get heated rear seats, not ventilated, heated, so in the winter. That will be useful. You get a sun shade here, and you know with the practicality that I said earlier, you you get a flat floor at the rear. Now lets say: if you want to increase the space in the middle, you can just move the foreign ERS. You can also electrically adjust the rear seats, so, for instance, if I want to move my seat forward – and I can manually push my backrest so yeah a lot of functionality built in you – can use it for many purposes. You can even control the seats. The rear seats from buttons dedicated here and I think, given the Comfort given the space, the ionic five rear seat, is a really good place to be, if youre chauffeured around just overall, the level of features offered the level of convenience of it.

Its something thats really good it. It feels really impressive. My only fear, like I said earlier, white Interiors, oh boy, they are going to be one major concern to clean every few weeks, but cant complain about anything else in the ionic lets get onto the road and see how it drives its 215 BHP 350 NM and Whether it can really do 600 kilometers of range on a single charge, foreign you, what the exterior and the exterior details of the ionic 5 are like Ive, also shown you how the interior is and how it feels to be inside the space. Now it comes to one of the most vital aspects of any car, the Driving Experience uh. To give you some technical background, the ionic 5 is based on Hyundais, egmp modular electric platform. This is a skateboard chassis. Has the battery integrated into the floor and there are two versions of this platform that are used commonly one is the dual motor all wheel drive version but thats, not the one that is on the ionic 5. What we get is the single motor rear, wheel, drive version. The rear wheel drive is interesting. It has certain benefits Ill, come to that in a bit it produces about 215 BHP at about 350 NM of torque. Now, if you would have seen reset other bigger EVS, they have a lot more power red talk, but, to be honest, a car this size about 1800 odd kilos is what it weighs that 350 NM and the 215 BHP is perfectly adequate, which is also reflected in The fact that it does the 0 100 Sprint in 7.

6 seconds, which is pretty honest as fast as you need to be – I mean its – not a performance car after all, the other aspect of EVS is of course range, and this has a 72.6 kilowatt hour battery. What that translates to in the real world, according to me, is around the 400 kilometer Mark as long as youre a constant driver, and you dont push the car too much. If you really push, it could probably go down to 350.. The ri figures – and this is going to be a contentious part in the future arai – has certified the ionic 5 to be able to do 631 kilometers on a single charge, even if youre hyper mile, even if you use the best techniques over inflate the tires. You know all that stuff, I think 631 is gon na be difficult. I think the figures are over optimistic 400, maybe 450. If youre, a really careful driver is what I would expect the ionic to do comfortably weve already spoken about the quality, how the cabin feels really nice. It feels unique. It feels very, very well built and its a nice place to be, and you know the quietness of the electric drivetrain obviously adds to the effect the music sounds nicer. I you know when we were running its quite hot in Goa today were running the AC. Initially, I thought the fans were a bit loud, but fans are not really loud, theyre about the same volume that they would be in a normal car.

The only difference being that you hear them much more because theres hardly any uh noise from the powertrain which you will have in a petrol or diesel hybrid. All of them will have that noise. That obviously gives us a benefit here and that adds to the refinement coming back to the driving the ionic five feels decently fast, that 350 NMU, but its a very measured power delivery. When you really accelerate like I just did it doesnt hit you with a wall of torque, but it accelerates quite quickly. 7.6 seconds, like I said earlier, is those slouch so yeah. I mean its a more measured power delivery, but its quick nevertheless, dont think that this is a slow car at all. You can do pretty high speeds and the top speed is limited, though a couple of points are the ionic that are not optimal. Are the suspension feels quite stiff? It has to be because it has to compensate for the battery weight, so it feels quite stiff if youre driving on bad roads will either have to slow down or find better roads to drive on. At the same time, it also has some body roll, so thats. One of the aspects, the other, the steering uh, you know a lot of Hyundai products now have fantastic steering feet, but the ionic 5 is still missing in that matter. The steering doesnt have much feel yeah in sport mode. You know you get three selectable driving modes.

Eco, normal and sport in sport it loads up its a bit too heavy in normal its fine, but I would like a bit more feels uh. What is good, though, is that you get three different levels of recharging modes, so you can either let the ionic 5 Cruise without much battery regeneration or you can put into the most aggressive mode and virtually drive it via one pedal, because the braking effect the brake, Recuperation effect is so intense that it automatically slows down the card. The minute you take your foot off the throttle, so you can play around with that thats. Always nice thats what people love doing the TVs using the recharging mode. The other aspect of the ion effect thats impressive, like I said earlier, space practicality, Comfort. All of that is there uh, but its still, not a very cheap vehicle. Yes, its much cheaper for its segment, much cheaper than the car that it shares is underpinnings with the key iuv6 at 46. Lakhs though it has an advantage for itself, is that uh between the 30 35 lakh Mark, which is where the bydato3 is, and the Zs is a little lesser to about 60 65 plus, which is where the Volvo xc40 recharged and the ev6 are theres. A huge 25 30 lakh rupee Gap and the ionic 5 sits right. In the middle of that Gap, the first 500 cars were sold at or rather booked at a price of uh, 45 lakhs and the price has gone up now.

The introductory price is no more, but its only gon na buy a lakh, so at 46 lakhs. I still think the ionic 5 offers a lot for the customer whos looking to go green whos looking to work on their carbon footprint. It gives you a lot of practical range. 400 kilometers is no joke and I think for most users, that would be more than enough. You have a high speed charging capability. So if you have lets say access to a 350 kilowatt charger or a 1 50 kilowatt charger, either 350 will recharge your ionic from 10 to 80 in 18 minutes and on the 150, and this is interesting. 10 to 80 takes 21 minutes. Of course, all of this is dependent on the temperature. You are in on a lot of other factors. Both hot and cold temperatures affect the battery differently. The range that you will get out of every charge is also going to change depending on the temperature and the areas you are in. So taking into account all of these things. I think the ionic 5 offers a lot. It looks fantastic. It feels very well built its decently quick, its got pretty good range, its not cheap at 46, lakhs plus insurance and other things, its a 50 lakh review vehicle, but it does offer something that price is not being offered by any other vehicle. I think thats its calling card, the good looks the total product offering and the fact that its priced at the point where the competition is much more expensive.

So I think these things work really really well for the artifact and with its practicality. It could be a great Eevee for you, especially if your major use is urban traffic Urban commuting, because the size is very manageable and it feels quite good to drive and before I finish, uh the last thing when I said its rear wheel drive. You know that 350 NM of dock, that instant talk, delivery of an EV and you will drive well, you can drift the ionic 5 quite successfully quite easily, but its body roll then plays it. You can feel that its a bit soft to increase Comfort but yeah.