Hello, Just trying to gain some perspective here as I was at both dealers today and for the first time laid eyes and touched the interior of both the Ioniq 5 and ID4 and I was greatly disappointed with the interior quality of the Ioniq 5 in terms of material choices. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Ioniq looks good, tech is good, and specs are good. It’s pretty much scratchy hard plastic everywhere, even in high touch areas like door armrests. In contrast I checked out 2 ID4s afterwards and was pretty much “blown” away with the materials used - when having just seen the Ioniq 5.
Is this normal? EVs aren’t cheap vehicles and I understand the big part of cost are the electrical components like the battery, but the interior quality alone is greatly steering me towards an ID4 instead of the Ioniq 5… Along with an apparent 3 year wait for the Ioniq 5 AWD in Canada.
But how often does this actually matter? I’m in the middle of a road trip in my i4, and out of five charging stops I was only waiting for the car once for 10 minutes. The other 4 times the car was at my target charge by the time I was ready to go. I think any if the cars above 150kW charging speed are probably fine, she probably the above 100 will by doable if you only road trip once it twice a year.
I’m not saying that Hyundai isn’t easy ahead in the charging system, I’m just saying that it probably isn’t a reason to buy the car on its own. I would choose the Ionic 5 over the id.4 for the quality (weirdly, but Hyundai is killing it and VW, bluntly, isn’t), styling, and ride quality, but the charging speed would be a bonus rather than a selling feature.
Here’s where I think it matters most: throughput.
You can charge 3 EGMP cars (Ioniq 5, Ioniq 6, EV6, etc.) in the time it takes to charge 2 Mustang Mach-Es. Over the course of a 16 hour day from 6 AM to 10 PM, that’s 48 cars charged vs. 32. If your charging station has 4 blocks which can support those peak EGMP charge rates, then that’s 192 vs 128 cars that can be handled.
For an individual, the 5-15 minutes you can save by having the faster charging EV (vs. a fast but not quite as fast charging EV) is probably not that big a deal. Even on the longest travel days–where you could be fast charging 3 or 4 times–that’s no more than an hour of time difference, and probably less. Unless you’re on an unavoidably tight time crunch (a rare conundrum), or have impatient kids in the backseat who can’t be reasoned with because they’re just plain sick of being in car seats, that’s acceptable. But what’s not acceptable is waiting for 1 or more other cars in front of you in the queue to do their entire charge before you can even have your turn to plug in. That’s why I say throughput is where it matters, and is the real benefit of having a higher percentage of the EV fleet being super fast charging.
This throughput issue is, of course, remedied with more charging infrastructure in more places, and so it’s good that not only are charge speeds of the fleet averaging upward, but also that more stations are being built every day!
I’ve road tripped in an Ioniq 5 and Standard Range F150. Same 400+ mile trip.
You get a lot of piece of mind in knowing that the ioniq 5 is going to get you in and out quickly, even if there are issues with EA (which is like a 50/50 chance).
But that’s my point. The higher charging rate might give you some warm fuzzy feelings, but it doesn’t actually change your road trip. If I had the Ionic 5 yesterday, I would have saved at most 15 minutes in a 12 hour drive. And I am not exaggerating. I was surprised, but every time except once when I got back to my car it was ready to go.
I just ran an Ioniq 5 versus an ID.4 on a 12.5hr drive in ABRP: 1hr 57 min of charging for the Ioniq 5, 3hr 34min for the ID.4. That’s significant.
Given that used AWD ID.4 and AWD Ioniq 5 can both be purchased for around $27k for their initial 2021 models, why would I choose the 2021 ID.4 that has slower charging, slower software, and drum brakes?
Personally would love to consider the ID.4 as our next vehicle, but the gen 1 ID.4 has enough downsides that it’s at the bottom of my list.
OMG, does the VW really have drum brakes?!
Only total pieces of shit have drum brakes, so don’t tell me the VW is “nicer” than the Hyundai.
Does it also have hand-crank windows?
What year are we living in, 1993?
It has rear drum brakes because they are virtually useless since the regenerative braking is very strong. It reduces maintenance and production costs for zero performance or driving experience impact.
The front wheels have disc brakes of course.
As a ID.4 owner I couldn’t car less about the drum brakes, I’m glad I won’t have to replace 4x disc brakes that have entirely rusted out like I did with my old Volt.
It’s just that you will always be able to charge faster.
You run into a lot with only 50kw charger available? Well you will still likely pull in more than 50kw, meaning your stop is shorter.
Depends on the road trip. It can make a significant difference for some. https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/s/Ex7JWVvV3y
Yes, people do not realize the diminishing returns of charging speed.
Going from 50 kW to 100 kW is a huge improvement, which can save you hours on a road trip.
Another doubling, going from 100 kW to 200 kW is nice, but not really life changing.
Another doubling, going from 200 kW to 400 kW is “Okay, I saved 5 minutes, but that just means that I couldn’t finish my coffee.”.
There’s no diminishing returns; it’s a linear relationship. Double the speed is double the speed, unless you’re comparing cars with different sized battery packs. The Ioniq 5 and the id4 are similarly sized though.
Here’s an article https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electric-car-charging.html#table. In that test the Ioniq 5 gained 100mi of range in 08 min 54 sec, and the id4 did the same in 15 min 09 sec.
OTOH, if you don’t always find an 800V 350kW charger then you may not be gaining as much.
Own a Tesla model Y here, and yah, shared gen2 super chargers kinda suck, but now it’s mostly all Gen3 I land on, and ughhh yah. I end up with more charge than I need to go home by the time I go pee and grab a drink and a snack.
I seriously imagine the people who were excited about 800v are peeing in bottles while driving 3000 miles a day.
Yea, I stopped at a 250kw supercharger yesterday. Tesla likes to route you to an older 150kw unit in this area for some reason. The 250 is newer and has way more stalls. The 150kw was also more expensive. The 150kw is closer to the route so I’m sure that’s why.
Anyway, I stopped to get some lunch before I started charging. I was ready to resume my trip before I finished my cheeseburger. Granted, I wasn’t on a super long trip so I just needed to add about 20% but it only took maybe 5 minutes.
As I understand it, if you have common lithium ion batteries, faster charging degrades your battery capacity over time. How much degradation is caused by extra fast charging vs slower, IDK. I just thought it worth mentioning.
Apparently, the latest lithium polymer batteries are not as sensitive to state-of-charge. So, you can use the full capacity, 1-100%, without concern for accelerated degradation. Whether or not the lithium polymer batteries handle fast charging better as well, IDK.
Each doubling also means you’re more likely to be limited by the charger. Often you only have 150 kW chargers and the best charging cars can’t do any better than those with good charging.
You are kind of making my point for me without realizing it. On road trips I don’t need to plan an activity around charging my Ioniq 5.
I can only provide the scenario that we’re presented with this week. US Thanksgiving road trip.
We could have taken a longer (distance) route with the same ETA to use my Ioniq 5 with two stops and a EV friendly hotel, but the hotel was more expensive, less kid oriented, and didn’t include breakfast. So basically negated any cost savings even when ignoring the kid part. That then means that the two other stops to charge at EAs that will likely have a line during the holiday period are all for nothing. Even if they are both open and working, the stops would be longer since there’s no food near them and all three of us are pretty quick on just bathroom stops.
After writing this, it is less on the pure charging speed discussion, and more on the overall experience. Eh, I’ll leave it since it’s still a relevant aspect.