We finally did it! After years of dreaming about driving zero emission vehicles, we traded in our Toyota Highlander, sold our little teardrop trailer and bought a 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5. Here she is…

We bought her in July, so we’ve had her for 4 months now and what fun it has been! At first we thought Scott would drive her, since he was driving the Highlander and that’s what we traded in. Quickly he decided that he’d rather drive the Nissan LEAF. He pointed out that his father had passed in June and so he wasn’t driving as much, but I was driving more to take my mother to appointments and check in on her, so I should drive the Ioniq. I was so thrilled! I haven’t been this in love with a car since my Chevy Malibu when I was 16.

She is a dream to drive–supersonic fast, responsive, intelligent, comfortable, with a great Bose sound system and a huge panoramic glass roof that has a cool automatic shade if you need it. Our Limited is also an AWD vehicle with motors on the front and rear axles and a high capacity 77 kWh battery. The design of this car is very thoughtful with a futuristic-retro flair I appreciate. For example, the whole cabin is designed to feel like a living room on wheels. Hyundai used the Palisade wheel base, which is their longest SUV, so there’s a ton of leg room in the back seats and they recline. They don’t go as far back as the front seats, which can go all the way to zero gravity! My seat even has a leg rest that goes up, like a recliner! It’s super comfy for when you want to rest while charging on the road. You can turn on your favorite tunes, kick back and stare out the pano roof.

The AWD Ioniq has a range of 256 miles and we charge her in our garage off our solar panels. I often drive for about a week around Reno before needing to charge. We have done several road trips with her and been impressed with her comfort and the ability to get charges when we need them. We can get to many of the local places we like and back home on one charge, like Lake Tahoe, Graeagle and Minden/Gardnerville. On longer road trips using freeways, we can comfortably go about 175 miles before needing a charge, leaving 15% in the battery (less than this gives us range anxiety). What we’ve noticed is our range is less than hers! At about 150 miles, we want to stop, stretch our legs and rest anyway. Hyundai gives 2 years of free charging on Electrify America and so far we’ve been impressed by these stations and their rate of charge. There are a number of them along major interstate highways. The Ioniq can handle a 220 kW charge and is supposed to be able to go from 20-80% in 20 minutes. We have found it takes more like 25-30 minutes, depending on how low the battery is, the temperature, and how many other cars are using the chargers. For example, when two cars are charging at a 350 kW charger, the charge is split or balanced between the two cars. To maximize battery life, we try to keep ours charged between 20-80% most of the time, but before road trips we will top her up to 100%. We try to avoid draining the battery below 10%, and prefer to stop at 15% or higher. While it takes a little more planning to do a road trip in an EV, we haven’t found that it has changed our style much at all and we are loving note paying for gas right now! Most Electrify America chargers are near restaurants and shopping centers, so you can eat, shop and use the bathroom.

More Design Features

The dash has two side-by-side screens that are a nice size. The left screen gives you all your driving information like speed, charge left in the battery and estimated miles remaining, whether you are using energy or generating it, if there are other vehicles around you, and a neat feature that shows your blind spot when you signal a lane change. It also shows you the adaptive cruise control and lane keeping features that are active while driving. The right screen is for infotainment and navigation. You can see EV status, control EV features like charging, set navigation points, access the map, change settings, adjust the climate (heat, A/C, heated seats and steering wheel), access Apple CarPlay, see what music or radio stations are playing, and put the car in Valet Mode which locks the screen so no one can access your personal information.

On the retro side, Hyundai still gives you buttons for standard features both on the dash under the screens and also on the steering wheel. All the cruise control is handled on the steering wheel, which includes adaptive features like lane keeping and adjusting your speed to the vehicle in front of you. I tested it out and she will drive herself with your hands lightly on the steering wheel most of the time while in this mode. She can get confused if the lines on the road are not clear and she can’t quite handle a sharp curve in the road. She is teaching me to be a better driver, because she will beep at me if I change lanes without signaling or am too close to another car. She’ll also alert me if I’m coming up too fast on another vehicle or if one is approaching from behind quickly. I must say I find her care of us to be very comforting!

Speaking of that, she has awesome parking cameras that give you a 360-degree view, and you can spin it in the display to see all sides of the car before turning her off! I’m finding this an incredibly helpful feature, especially for tight places and parallel parking. She does have the ability to park herself, but it is slow with lots of adjustments. One nice feature, if you end up in a tight parking space, is the ability to have her drive forwards or backwards by the push of a button on the FOB. She is sensitive about getting too close to things and has three levels of alarms–slow beep, fast beep, continuous beep–to let you know how she’s feeling. Sometimes, she’s way more sensitive about her space than I am. I must admit that I do use her complaints to help me park–when she goes into that continuous beep I know I’m far enough into our garage. In my mom’s, I can stop once the fast beep starts. So far I haven’t hit anything. Once she thought I was going to run my neighbor over, who was standing behind her and a little to the side, so she stopped dead in her tracks and wouldn’t move! I had to ask my neighbor to step back a bit :-).

The Ioniq 5 has the ability to connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth or a USB cable and is Apple CarPlay enabled. I usually rest my iPhone on the charging pad in the console or leave it in my purse. I can activate Siri by pressing a button on the steering wheel and then ask her to text, call or play my music. The sound system is awesome!

Another feature I really like is the heads up display at eye level in the windshield. It shows my speed, the current speed limit and driving directions given by the navigation system. The navigation system also speaks softly to me through the driver side speaker. Between the two, I don’t have to take my eyes off the road to check where I’m headed next.

I’m also enjoying Bluelink, which connects me to the Ioniq via satellite. I can check the car’s status, turn on climate control, locate the vehicle, control valet mode, check the vehicle health and schedule maintenance appointments. It also automatically updates my maps and other vehicle systems.

One of the big selling points of the Ioniq for us was its large cargo area. You can fold down the rear seats and you have an incredible amount of space back there, plus the auto-lift rear hatch is very nice. Here’s a photo of us helping my aunt and uncle move out of their Truckee house. We fit so much in that they were able to take the rest in their vehicle. There is ample space for us to take half our house to vacation rentals, which is a habit of ours…

We decided to go with the Limited trim so we could have the nice leather seats which are fully adjustable in front. Our car came with white and so far I’m liking it and not finding it hard to keep clean with a little Simple Green. We also wanted the nice pano roof, the driving and parking assistance and the really cool wheels! The other feature we love is the 110-volt plug in the back seat that draws power off the battery without needing an adaptor. Check out this video of plugging our garage frig into it in case of a power outage:

Did you see the cool blue lighting in that video? It’s around the speakers and in the armrests. It creates beautiful interior lighting at night. By the way, the mirror in the video is folded in, which is a nice feature for tucking into our garage. The door handles also pop out when you need to get in the car, but pull in flush for good aerodynamics while driving.

Buying the Ioniq 5

That was quite the experience! I knew I wanted this car when I watched YouTube videos of the test drives and listened to the comparisons with other EV’s. I was sold when it swept the World Car Awards this year, winning Car of the Year, EV of the Year and Design of the Year. It also won Car and Driver’s EV of the year, Consumer Guides Best Buy and the Insurance Institute’s top safety award for crash integrity. Needless to say, that also made it a hot item and difficult to get.

One day, looking at Hyundai’s inventory, I saw that a white Limited was scheduled for delivery in Reno, but was not yet claimed. I knew that was the color and trim I wanted. On a whim, I called and asked about it. Ryan told me it was available, but if I wanted it, I needed to act quickly. I told him I at least wanted to see one before I bought it unseen. He said he had one on the lot that was still in plastic and we could sit in it and have a look, but we couldn’t drive it, since it already belonged to someone. Scott and I went down and had a look. We both decided it was definitely a great car. Ryan said we needed to start the paperwork that day if we wanted it. I had a really busy day, so Ryan told me we could do it all over the phone and he’d bring the paperwork by for me to sign later that afternoon at our house. I didn’t believe he could do that, but he did! He said the car would probably come in 2 weeks, but he never knew for sure when a truck would pull up. He called me later in the afternoon and said, “You aren’t going to believe this, but your car just arrived.” I was blown away! We picked it up the next day. I still cannot believe how lucky we got. I can’t say enough good things about Ryan and the crew over at Reno Hyundai, they really bent over backwards to make this deal work, including letting us “borrow” our Highlander for an additional two weeks to tow a trailer of larger furniture for my aunt and uncle to California. They took it as a trade-in and then put Loaner plates on it and let us keep it until we were done with it–unbelievable! He also took time to show us the features of the car and set it up with our iPhones.

Hyundai offers one of the best warranties of any major manufacturer: 5 years/60,000 miles new vehicle, bumper to bumper and 10 years/100,000 miles on the powertrain/battery. They also provide 3 years of complimentary maintenance and 5 years of complimentary road assistance. Impressive!

The Numbers

Ok, so you all want to know what this costs. The MSRP on the Limited Ioniq 5 is $57,500, which in my mind is a bargain when I considered all that was included and the $7,500 federal tax rebate, which brought it down to $50,000. They also gave us $39,000 for the Highlander. Typically there are about 10% of additional fees and taxes (in NV) added on to the purchase.

I also asked Ryan which of Hyundai’s gas cars was the most comparable to the Ioniq and he told me the Tucson, which has an MSRP of $39,500. I wanted to do a comparison for this blog of what it would cost to own the ICE vs. the EV and I will use these numbers in my annual solar blogs to see how long the savings of driving the EV will take to make up the price difference. With these gas prices, I’m guessing not long! Plus EVs are 50-65% cheaper to maintain over their lives than ICEs.

2022 Ioniq 5

MSRP $57,500

Plus 10% fees and taxes $5,750

Less Federal Tax Rebate $7,500

Total Cost: $55,750

2022 Tucson Limited

MSRP $39,500

Plus 10% fees and taxes $3,950

Total Cost: $35,550

Difference Between EV and ICE $20,200

NOTE: Sadly, the new Inflation Reduction Act removed the tax credit for the Ioniq 5 as of August 17th because final assembly is still in South Korea. Hyundai has broken ground on a new plant in Georgia and hopes to begin production of 300,000 vehicles per year in 2025. At that point, the $7,500 rebate will be reinstated.

Summing it Up

It’s been fun to reflect on 4 months of going all EV and share the adventure with you. One thing I notice is we no longer struggle with who is going to get to drive the EV today, so we could save on gas. Overall the experience has been a joy and I must say I LOVE THIS CAR! We have no regrets about our decision, in fact, it feels great to know that we are finally driving zero emission vehicles which are mostly powered by our solar panels. A long-time dream of ours has finally come true!