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

by Tim Healey

Published: May 18th, 2023

Fast Facts

2022 Hyundai Ioniq5 Limited AWD Fast Facts

Motor

Dual Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motors, Front and Rear (74 kW front+165 kW rear, 320 total horsepower, 446 lb-ft of torque)

Transmission/Drive Layout

Single-speed automatic with reduction gear, all-wheel drive

Fuel Economy, MPGe

132 city / 98 highway / 114 combined (EPA Rating)

Fuel Economy, Le/100KM

2.1 city / 2.7 highway / 2.4 combined (NRCan Rating)

Base Price

$54,500 (U.S.) / $57,652 (CAN)

As-Tested Price

$56,920 (U.S.) / $60,726.92 (CAN)

Prices include $1,225 destination charge in the United States and $2,025 for freight, PDI, and A/C tax in Canada and, because of cross-border equipment differences, can’t be directly compared.

2022 hyundai ioniq5 review whatever it is its 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.

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Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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2 of 35 comments

Kcflyer on May 19, 2023

That way too much for a small suv with so little range.

1 Reply
FreedMike on May 22, 2023

There has been some carping here about the price, but it's entirely reasonable if you think of it as a performance sedan, ala Audi S4. In that context, the ioniq5's performance and price line up nicely.
And, no, kids, you aren't going to get something with S4 performance for thirty grand.
The price resistance comes mainly from people who think of EVs as economy cars, and at this point, that's not where the market is. In fact, the two EVs I would argue are competitive with something like a Civic - the Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf - have enjoyed a fraction of the market acceptance of cars like the Tesla Model 3.

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