Considering a BEV, again

[underwhelmist]

I am once again considering taking the leap into buying a BEV.

My much-loved Alfa Romeo 156 is on its last legs, it needed welding at the last MOT, it uses almost as much oil as it does petrol, it's not cheap on road tax and it's now throwing frequent MCSF (motor control system failure) which I'm fed up of trying to track down. I think it's time to face facts, I need to replace it.

I've been looking at Hyundai Ioniq EVs (the original one, not an Ionic <number>) These seem to be available for about £11k - £12k for a four year old example with about 40k miles. They have a nominal range of 193 miles. Our journeys are usually fairly short - my commute is about 20 miles each way, but when the weather's good I take my motorbike, in this case Mrs U would probably use it for local trips. We're in the West Midlands and very rarely drive further than North London (about 100 miles) or the North West (about 70 miles), and when we do we're usually there for at least a few hours with the opportunity to charge.

Does anybody have experience of this generation of Ioniq? Would an 11k example be a good buy for short trips? Would it be appropriate for my use case? I'd welcome any advice and would be especially interested to hear from any Ioniq owners - I know it's not the latest generation but it seems like a fairly low-cost way to test the water.

Thanks all!

[Paul Drawmer]

Can you charge at home? If not, just don't bother.

[PetrolHeadInRecovery]

underwhelmist said:

I am once again considering taking the leap into buying a BEV.

My much-loved Alfa Romeo 156 is on its last legs, it needed welding at the last MOT, it uses almost as much oil as it does petrol, it's not cheap on road tax and it's now throwing frequent MCSF (motor control system failure) which I'm fed up of trying to track down. I think it's time to face facts, I need to replace it.

I've been looking at Hyundai Ioniq EVs (the original one, not an Ionic <number>) These seem to be available for about £11k - £12k for a four year old example with about 40k miles. They have a nominal range of 193 miles. Our journeys are usually fairly short - my commute is about 20 miles each way, but when the weather's good I take my motorbike, in this case Mrs U would probably use it for local trips. We're in the West Midlands and very rarely drive further than North London (about 100 miles) or the North West (about 70 miles), and when we do we're usually there for at least a few hours with the opportunity to charge.

Does anybody have experience of this generation of Ioniq? Would an 11k example be a good buy for short trips? Would it be appropriate for my use case? I'd welcome any advice and would be especially interested to hear from any Ioniq owners - I know it's not the latest generation but it seems like a fairly low-cost way to test the water.

Thanks all!

Ioniq based on hearsay: very economical (so better range than you'd expect), generally well-liked by the owners. Known downsides: weight distribution is not ideal for a FWD (mostly a winter-driving issue), and motor bearings can fail (can be replaced by independent garages in many places, don't know about UK).

The daily trips sound short enough that a Level 1 charging (an adapter you connect to a standard socket) should be enough. Otherwise, if you can plug in, e.g. while shopping, you'll get around 60 miles of mixed driving range per hour on a level 2 charger. Might cut into savings a bit, but "fuel" costs are just a part of the total cost of ownership, and the convenience is pretty much at the level of home charging.

[J1990]

We had an Ioniq conventional hybrid, so not the same motor but the same interior and infotainment. I would say it's one of the biggest bargains we had for how little you paid for the vehicle vs just how much spec was standard. It wasn't a good looking car but it practically drove itself, was comfortable for very long journeys and had a ton of space. My biggest gripe with the vehicle was the dreadful transmission, however as a full EV that simply isn't an issue.
I'm not sure how comparable the Ioniq 5 and Kona electric are with the old electric Ioniq but when I drove these two they were absolutely fine, though I decided against them because I felt they were somewhat underpowered for my preferences and instead went for an EV6 AWD, the sister platform of the Ioniq 5, and haven't looked back.

[I52]

We have a 2021 38kwh Ioniq for the last couple of years, done 30,000miles in it. Originally got it as the commuting, local car, at the time had a 50-70mile daily commute. It worked well for us. Whilst we still use the petrol car for long journeys, we now also use the Ioniq for a lot of medium to long journeys, up to 180 miles away if there is destination charging, which we had not excepted to do when we bought it.
To date the only issues have been power fold mirrors and lacquer blistering on the alloys, both sorted with no fuss, under sheets are not very robust and very expensive had to replace one, but we live on single track rural roads so a harsh use case. Braking on poor/uneven surfaces is well below average.
Overall very happy with ours.

Edited by I52 on Thursday 19th June 10:50

[underwhelmist]

Thanks all, very interesting. I have a drive so can charge at home, and one of the dealers I'm considering is offering a free Ohme charger. Going to have a look at a few at the weekend.

[gmaz]

For £12K you could get a Kia Niro with a 64kWh battery and 3-4 years left on the warranty, or a Hyundai Kona, both of which are a generation ahead of the Ioniq.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202505142...

[sixor8]

Standard quality of dealer proof reading, I see. It's referred to as a Sorento in the 3rd sentence.

My sister had one for 4 years until late 2024 on a salary sacrifice and really liked it.

[mclwanB]

gmaz said:

For £12K you could get a Kia Niro with a 64kWh battery and 3-4 years left on the warranty, or a Hyundai Kona, both of which are a generation ahead of the Ioniq.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202505142...

Same generation and very closely related cars. Just not enough room for the bigger battery but much more efficient due to shape.

Ours is great, has averaged 4.9mi/KwH over last 26k miles, no faults other than a slight intermittent interior rattle that we dont seem to be able to fix.

Up to 200 miles range in summer and some do better than us. Charge rate is slow but due to efficiency goes twice as far as some for same amount of battery so doable. We do long journeys in ours but not that regularly- efficiency again means they are still about half the price of petrol, calculated that including the 7p /KwH charge at home we did 1000 miles for under £80.

[underwhelmist]

Thanks again for the replies, all very helpful and mostly reassuring. What is PH coming to?

We had a look at the Kona and e-Niro but they're big ol' buses and we wanted something regular car sized. I tested an Ioniq and was very impressed with it - refined ride, good performance (up to NSL speeds anyway), quiet and well equipped (compared to my Alfa!). I bought one! Picking it up on Thursday, looking forward to my EV experience.

[doolie]

I've commented a few times on BEV threads, we had one (38kW) for just under 4 years/40k miles. They are superb cars, I'd have another in a heartbeat.

Very economical, north of 200miles in summer
Pretty spacious for class / good legroom in rear
Reliable with a few exceptions. Broken rear door handle (fixed under warranty), twice we had 12v issue. And the power mirrors (I suspect related to the 12v issue) towards the end of the 4years

Great value cars

[underwhelmist]

Right, it's happening. The Alfa has gone, I'm a bit sad but also feel slightly like a weight has been lifted, I was always waiting for the next EML or wondering if I should check the oil level again. We had a good seven years and made some great memories, but it's time to move on. I got a not-completely-derisory offer from WBAC so was quite happy to take it, it'll be appearing at an auction somewhere near you soon, if you're in the West Mids I guess.

I've been reading the owners manual for the Ioniq in advance of picking it up on Thursday. There's a lot of tech in it which I suspect will take some time to get used to.

Last pic of the Alfa as I walked away for the last time





edit: Who sells a 2023 Polestar to WBAC? Seems odd.

Edited by underwhelmist on Wednesday 25th June 00:51

[underwhelmist]

I'm a week into ownership now, bloody hell why didn't I get one of these years ago? It's comfortable, good to drive (obviously not a sports car though) and has loads of tech, even the Lane Keep Assist isn't too annoying. Smart cruise control is good, and getting the hang of one-pedal driving has been satisfying.

Currently I'm charging on the granny charger that came with the car. The screen on the charger is knackered so I think I've got it set at 10A but I can't be sure, I'm charging during the day so I can periodically check the socket isn't getting too warm, it seems fine so far but I'm going to avoid leaving it charging overnight. I've also tried out a fast DC charger at the local Costa Coffee just so I could see how they worked. Dead easy. The Ohme charger is being installed in a couple of weeks, then I'll switch over to the Octopus Intelligent Go tariff.

The boot is big but fairly shallow with a high lip, I do wonder how well my bass amp (old Peavey TNT115) is going to fit in the boot, it might be time to upgrade to a newer lightweight amp . It's the first car I've owned that doesn't have a spare wheel, hopefully I won't have to find out how well the supplied sealant and compressor work! It's just occurred to me that I don't know if the luggage cover is removeable, I'll have to check that tomorrow unless someone can enlighten me?

The navigation and screen etc are great, I haven't played with CarPlay yet. It's great being to listen to 6Music, but I miss having a CD player (yes, still got lots of CDs).

The Hyundai Blue Connect phone app is very useful, I dare say the functionality (being able to remotely lock/unlock, start climate control etc) is fairly commonplace on modern cars but it's all new to me. My biggest gripe is with the graphic design and consequent usability of the phone app. Tiny fonts (yes even when I'm wearing my reading specs), grey and light blue text on a white background, lots of dead whitespace, annoyances like that which would be dead easy to fix.

I'm very happy with the car and now a complete EV convert.