2022 Hyundai Ioniq5 Review – Whatever It Is, It’s Good

The 2022 Hyundai Ioniq5 is difficult to categorize. Sure, it’s an EV, that much is obvious. But what segment does it play in? Is it a crossover or a hatchback or…

It doesn’t really matter. It’s just pretty dang good.

It certainly didn’t hurt that my Limited-trim all-wheel drive tester came with the most-powerful available setup. Dual electric motors (74kW and 165kW) combine for 320 horsepower and 446 lb-ft of torque in an all-wheel-drive setup. Juice is supplied via 77.4 kWh lithium-ion battery.

That gives the Ioniq5 a bit of gusto. It’s no barn-burner, but it’s quick enough to generate some grins, and like most EVs, that torque is on tap pretty much instantly from a dead stop.

Handling is fun and engaging, too, at least relative to what the Ioniq5 is. It is not a sports car – it’s a crossover-ish hatch.

Fun to drive is one thing, around-town ride is another, and the Ioniq5 doesn’t require much sacrifice there – it’s well calibrated for commuting.

This is how most folks will use this car – the available sportiness is just a bonus. One neat feature – steering-wheel-mounted paddles control the amount of regenerative braking.

Commuters care as much about the inside as they do a car’s back-road chops, and the Ioniq5’s interior is a mix of weird and familiar, attractive design and functional utility. You get a steering wheel with two fat spokes and a flat, screen-laden dash. The shifter is a weird column-mounted unit that you twist for the desired gear, and the HVAC and radio controls are a bit limited in the number of knobs and buttons available for use. I’d like more old-school knobs, but you do get used to it – even the shifter becomes second nature after a while. The good news here is that the dash looks uncluttered and that lends an airy feeling to the cabin.

Most cabin materials also feel price appropriate.

I take a bit more issue with the exterior styling. Obviously subjective, I know, but I can’t quite get my head around the angular design that looks like it belongs in some sci-fi movie set in the distant future. I don’t think I’d say the Ioniq6 is ugly, but I don’t find it to be particularly striking in a positive way, either. It is head-turning, but only because few cars look like it. Meanwhile, the similar Kia EV6 manages to take the same overall shape and use angles much better – the Kia is sexier.

There’s one other thing about the Ioniq5 I don’t like – the price. Yes, EVs tend to be a bit more costly than similarly sized internal-combustion engine cars because the tech is relatively new and costs a bit more to build. Yes, you can save money by not buying gas, and yes the Ioniq5 appears to be still eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit if it’s leased (it’s not eligible if you buy since it’s assembled in South Korea). But still, $56K seems a tad steep for a commuter crossover.

The only options were the Shooting Star matte paint and carpeted floor mats -- the base price was $54,500.

You do get heated and cooled front seats, LED lighting, 20-inch wheels, rain-sensing wipers, wireless device charging, navigation, front and rear USB ports, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, satellite radio, smart park parking assist, a power liftgate, head-up display, and Bose audio, among other features.

You also get vehicle-to-load charging via a 1.9 kW second-row outlet. This allows you to power small appliances and even other electric vehicles.

The maximum range on an Ioniq5 equipped as my tester is a claimed 256 miles. Standard A/C Level II/240-volt charging isn’t fast – from 10 percent to full in a shade under 7 hours, but fast charging on a 150 kW/400-volt charger can get you from 10 to 80 percent in 25 minutes, and if you can locate an 800-volt/35 kW charger you can get from 10 percent to 80 percent in 18 minutes. There’s a 10.9 kW onboard charger, and the battery has a pre-heating system.

Safety nannies (ninnies?) include forward collision-avoidance assist, blind-spot collision-avoidance assistance, lane-keeping and lane-following assistance, driver-attention warning, and rear cross-traffic collision-avoidance assist.

The overall package here is impressive, though the Ioniq5 suffers from some faults that are currently typical to EVs – faults that will likely fade as the tech improves and becomes more widespread. It’s a bit costly, and there’s a range tradeoff for the all-wheel drive and extra power – while the base car has only 220 miles of range, a rear-drive upper-trim Ioniq5 can get up to 303 miles of range, though you drop in power to 225 ponies and 258 lb-ft of torque.

It also has a polarizing design on the outside and some quirkiness on the inside that might annoy. But if you can live with that, and you have the scratch, you can do a lot worse in the compact EV crossover/hatch department.

What’s New for 2022

The 2022 Hyundai Ioniq5 is all new.

Who Should Buy It

The EV buyer looking for something that blends sport and practicality – the one who finds the Ford Mustang Mach-E too sporty and the Volkswagen ID.4 not sporty enough.

[Images © 2023 Tim Healey/TTAC.com, Hyundai]

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