Hyundai IONIQ 5 2WD 2021 Review

There’s no doubt the 2021 Hyundai IONIQ 5 is the most anticipated electric car to arrive in Australia since the Tesla Model 3.

It’s so anticipated it’s sold out. Yes, we’re talking about 240 vehicles so far, not thousands, so the EV sales supremacy of the Model 3 is under no threat as yet.

Priced from $71,900 plus on-road costs, the single-motor ‘entry-level’ IONIQ 5 2WD we’re testing here for the first time in Australia lines up roughly against the Model 3 and the new Polestar 2. But they both have cheaper models that qualify for state government EV rebates.

Cheaper IONIQ 5s are expected later.

Recently named carsales’ 2021 Car of the Year, the IONIQ 5 has a bit of old-school Aussie about it as it is rear-wheel drive. But that’s about where the similarities start and end with a Holden Commodore V8 as an electric motor sits on the rear axle and is supplied power by a lithium-ion polymer battery pack located under the floor.

Fast DC recharging is claimed to enable 100km of range in less than five minutes. The claimed maximum range between recharges is 451km, based on the WLTP test cycle.

The attention-getting (like, everywhere you go) IONIQ 5 exterior is meant to remind us of the 1974 Hyundai Pony. That was a coupe, this is a five-door SUV. The open-plan flat-floor interior is meant to remind us of a living room. The steering wheel and pedals are the give-aways it isn’t.

The only equipment the all-wheel drive model adds is an extra e-motor up front, more power and torque, slightly less range and a $5000 more expensive price (before on-road costs).

Befitting the price point, the IONIQ 5 comes standard with lots of stuff. It rolls on complex-looking flat-faced 20-inch alloy wheels shod with bespoke Michelin Pilot Sport tyres. There’s a smart power tailgate and a full-length panoramic sunroof.

Inside, the seats are trimmed in eco-friendly leather, have power adjustment and memory in both rows (including fore-aft movement), heating and ventilation up front and heating in the rear. The fronts also have powered leg rests to make you more comfortable if snoozing during a recharge.

A 12.3-inch touch-screen and instrument panel dominate the dashboard behind a single pane of glass. There is embedded sat-nav, wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless smartphone charging, eight-speaker Bose audio, dual-zone climate control and adjustable ambient interior lighting. There are five USB-A ports across the front and rear.

There is no spare tyre, only tyre pressure monitoring and an inflator kit.

The IONIQ 5 is covered by the same five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty as any orthodox Hyundai, while the battery gets eight-year/160,000km coverage.

Service intervals are 15,000km or annually and capped-price servicing out to five years/75,000km costs $1684. That’s pretty cheap and reflects the lack of internal combustion engine and its costly consumables.

The 2021 Hyundai IONIQ 5 has received the maximum five-star ANCAP rating. It also comes standard with a long list of passive and active safety aids including seven airbags (centre airbag included), a 360-degree camera and vitally important autonomous emergency braking (AEB).

This system uses a radar and camera to alert the driver to cars between 5km/h and 200km/h and pedestrians and cyclists up to 85km/h. It will attempt to brake to avoid cyclists and pedestrians up to 65km/h and cars up to 85km/h. Above that speed it will slow the car.

In a Hyundai first, the adaptive cruise control system has artificial intelligence so it can learn driving patterns and habits and tailor its behaviour to the driver. Sounds funky.

A heap of features wrapped up under the Smartsense banner helps the IONIQ 5 avert various kinds of accidents and collisions, stay in its lane, spot vehicles lurking in blind spots, warn the driver of fatigue, adjust the high beam spread of the LED headlights, monitor speed limits, enter and exit parking spaces (remotely via the smart key if you want), warn that passengers have been left locked in the car and that it’s safe to open the door and exit.

There are two ISOFIX mounts in the outboard rear seats and three child seat top tethers in the back rest of the second row.

The 2021 Hyundai IONIQ 5 is the first vehicle on sale to sit on the Hyundai Motor Group’s new E-GMP battery-electric vehicle architecture.

The Kia EV6 and Genesis GV60 spring from the same basis and have been unveiled. There are more EVs based on E-GMP from all three brands on the way.

The E-GMP architecture allows both 400V and faster 800V charging where available. On the flipside, you can even plug another EV or a device like a laptop into an IONIQ 5 and run it off the battery.

This function is called vehicle-to-load (V2L) and I used it while writing this very road test during a daylong post-storm power outage.

You can laboriously recharge your IONIQ 5’s 72.6kWh battery pack from the standard 240V at home (taking 31 hours, according to Hyundai), or reduce that to about six hours at up to 10.5kW AC.

Alternatively, you can DC fast-charge at the more common 50kW public charger (taking about an hour) or have the recharging wrapped up in just 17:16min (claimed) if you can find a 350kW super-fast charger, which are rare in Australia.

The IONIQ 5 2WD is powered by a 160kW/350Nm permanent magnet synchronous e-motor that drives the rear wheels via a single-speed reduction gear. To save weight and energy, both the inverter and gear are located within the motor housing on the rear axle.

The powertrain’s claimed consumption rate is a competitive 17.9kWh/100km (WLTP) and we finished up at 18.2kWh/100km.

The claimed 0-100km/h acceleration figure is 7.4 seconds, which doesn’t sound that great. But the believing is in the driving, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Energy can be reclaimed through regenerative braking. This can be set by flappy paddles on the steering wheel, including an Auto mode.

The IONIQ 5 can coast with little brake effect or it can be maximised for single-pedal driving where a lift slows the car to an eventual stop. Friction brakes are 345mm discs at each corner, which can be adjusted for Normal or Sport mode.

The powertrain’s character can also be adjusted through four drive modes – Eco, Normal, Sport and Snow. Eco is the go-to mode given the ever-present desire to save power. The others are used as needed.

The IONIQ 5’s monocoque body is made from hot-stamped high-tensile-strength steel, while e-motors, suspension components and the clamshell bonnet are among parts produced in lightweight aluminium.

The chassis is orthodox in its design, combining electric-assist rack and pinion steering with MacPherson strut front and multi-link rear suspension. The damper system is passive.

Considering its 4635mm overall length, the IONIQ 5 sits on a long 3000mm wheelbase. It is 1890mm wide, 1605mm high and has a 160mm ground clearance. The latter is piddling for an SUV, which this car is in name only.

The aerodynamic drag figure is a good, but not great, 0.288Cd, despite aids including active air shutters, flush door handles and a flat underbody being deployed.

The IONIQ 5 has a sizeable 527-litre boot, which expands to 1587 litres with the rear seat split-folded. Up front there’s a 57-litre frunk.

The IONIQ 5 weighs in at 2020kg (tare mass) and tows up to 1600kg braked. The former figure isn’t too bad for an EV, the latter figure is pretty impressive.

As befits a new-age electric vehicle, the IONIQ 5 uses a variety of eco-friendly and sustainably-sourced interior materials including paperette on the doors, eco-processed leather and bio paint for cabin switches and the driver’s airbag cover.

The 2021 Hyundai IONIQ 5 is a geometric head-swiveller outside and spaciously startling inside. The driving experience isn’t quite as alien, but it still does take some getting used to.

There are familiar bits: push-button start, electric park brake, foot accelerator. But you select drive or reverse via a rotating knob on a stalk protruding from the steering column below the indicator stalk (careful, it can be confusing!).

Beyond that there are no gears to select and no gear lever to do it with anyway.

Thanks to the delightful e-motor trait of delivering maximum torque from tip-in throttle, the IONIQ 5 lacks nothing for acceleration from traffic lights or decisively thrusting into a busy intersection.

It’s a seamless power delivery that is always on. No powerbands, no sweet spots, no holes, no turbo or dual-clutch lag. It is the perfect powertrain for urban driving, without even taking zero emissions into account.

It’s pretty darn good on the open road too. Humming along set-and-forget, quietly chewing up the kays.

It’s only when the road becomes winding and interesting that some drivers might feel the loss of an internal combustion engine’s imperfections and need for gearing assistance. The IONIQ 5 punches hard out of corners and swiftly crosses country, but it’s a throttle-brake thing only.

Yes, you can introduce the regenerative paddles to the mix, but spinning the e-motor in reverse doesn’t deliver quite the thrill of a well-executed heel-and-toe or even manual shift in an auto ’box.

Of course, the IONIQ 5 couldn’t motor its way across hill and dale so competently only relying on its powertrain. A competent chassis is required as well.

And that box is ticked. The IONIQ 5 tracks neatly into and through corners without surrendering into sloppy body control. The steering lacks ultimate clarity but nor is it woolly and dead. That’s appreciated only after the overly-intrusive lane guidance and steering assist is switched off.

However, there is always a sense of weight and size about the IONIQ 5. Rough bitumen can promote shocks into the cabin and the rear wheels can become untethered and go for a walk on corrugated corners.

There’s noticeable vertical and lateral motion as the springs and dampers regain body control after crossing a big depression like a spoon drain.

Back in suburbia at slower speed there are obvious, if not dramatic, ride imperfections – like the stiffness of the set-up isn’t allowing much absorption.

It’s an easy car to see out of thanks to its raised ride height and big windows. It’s equally easy to manoeuvre because of its substantial low-speed steering assistance.

Importantly, it’s a quiet car at any speed. The departure of combustion simply hasn’t prompted tyre noise to fill the space.

The main annoyance through all this driving? A persistent metallic creak from the left-rear corner that I could not resolve. It detracted from what was otherwise a car of high perceived quality.

At this point let’s talk about our charging and consumption experience. Our best consumption average was 17kWh/100km during 100km of cruising. Our worst average was 20.6kWh/100km after a 225km test drive with some enthusiastic bits along the way.

With the range dropping and anxiety looming, the IONIQ 5 was whacked onto a Chargefox 350kW ultra-fast DC charger (Type 2 plug) and swallowed 47.69kWh in 41 mins, putting the juice in at a max rate of 152kWh (claimed 350kW). The cost? $19.07.

And there you have it – cheap, clean motoring that just takes time to deliver.

But more than that, more than the exterior and more than the drive, it’s the cabin of the IONIQ 5 that presents the most plusses and least minuses.

Brilliantly exploiting the space created by the absence of a piston engine, gearbox and transmission tunnel, it’s simply a triumph.

The combined instrument panel and touch-screen are like billboards for the interior’s originality, standing proudly atop the dashboard. In all my time with this car I’m sure I never discovered all the services, adjustments and tricks available.

I didn’t like having to reach across to the far side of the screen to tap some functions such as the home button, but there may be a way of shortcutting that on the steering wheel.

Speaking of which, this is the first car I can think of without a logo on the steering wheel boss. It’s also got only two horizontal spokes and a flat bottom.

Storage space is generous and clever, highlighted by the moveable centre console and bin between the front seats and the slide-out glovebox. There’s even a display board with magnetic capability next to the instrument panel.

The seats are deeply comfortable front and rear and very adjustable. The space in which they sit is generous. Four adults will be easily accommodated.

It’s hard to find a substantive criticism, beyond never feeling like I could adjust the driver’s seat low enough.

There is so much to like about the 2021 Hyundai IONIQ 5. The Korean auto giant clearly recognised the brave new world of EVs was a way to redefine itself as a car company the way yet another improved generation of orthodox cars never could.

The engineering, the technology, the exterior and interior design and the drive experience all suggest Hyundai’s best minds went at this car.

And they have created something memorable: The first truly desirable yet sensible EV from a mainstream legacy car-maker.

Damn, I wish it was $20,000 cheaper and available to anyone who wanted it, instead of $70,000 and trickled from the factory one-by-one.

Then, not only would it be memorable, it would be as important as any car that has been in the modern era.

As it stands, Tesla and its Model 3 finally have a worthy rival in the EV space.

How much does the 2021 Hyundai IONIQ 5 2WD cost?
Price: $71,900 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now (delivery in 2022)
Powertrain: Permanent magnet synchronous motor
Output: 160kW/350Nm
Transmission: Single-speed reduction gear
Battery: 72.6kWh lithium-ion
Range: 451km (WLTP)
Energy consumption: 17.9kWh/100km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Five-star (ANCAP 2021)