Unverified Ownership My life with electric toasters (from Ioniq & Niro to Kona EV)

I have another Hyundai EV on order for next summer. After mulling it over for a week or two, I ended up signing the forms for a 64kWh Kona in the fully loaded Style trim. The other option would have been the Ioniq 5 with the 2023 upgrades, but it would have been a bit more in every respect and I'll rather drive a frugal pocket rocket to the office than an RWD SUV that cannot match the efficiency - plus the winter tire package for the Ioniq 5 would have been considerably more expensive. I should be handing the Ioniq 38kWh over and getting the Kona around late spring/early summer 2023, if the wait lists stay as is. By that time, the Ioniq should have around 40k km.

Passed 40k km this past weekend so I'm on track :D I had a door ding fixed with PDR for a hundred bucks, meaning the Ioniq is just a good clean away from being handed over in ten days. It's just been really, really good, cheap and problem free.

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Here's a charging curve I got on my last stint on Friday, in very cold 5-6°C weather after something like 300km. Spent half an hour DC charging from a Kempower 150kW pole and managed to eke out 49kW for quite a while, as 50kW is the car's maximum charging speed. One thing I did was to trigger remote heating during charging a couple times, which might or might not have helped.
 
Cool story bro.
Also *Laughs in 234kw charging speed*
 
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Ioniq returned to the Hyundai dealer after 42000km of competent daily driver performance. I was really happy I could keep it free from scuffs, it must be one of the cleaner cars they get. Virtually no marks on the paintwork and very limited amount of snowbrush tell-tales. A few marks on the interior plastic and a worn windshield show it's gotten good use. I gave it a good wash a couple days ago so that the return check-up would be as easy as possible.

A list of faults follows:

- Headlight aim was off when the car was delivered
- Some jittery sounds from the rear, probably the tailgate spoiler, in the cold
- Winter tires the wrong profile so speedometer error increased in the winter

That's about it. It drove well, used very little electricity (lifetime average 15kWh/100km in year round use) and proved to be very dependable and reliable, like a new car should. The other day I got 10.6kWh/100km on my way home from work.

I would definitely recommend one of these if you want a full-EV Prius alternative that gets 200-300km from a full battery and mostly charge at home.

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I even got "good" charging speeds on the last CCS stop on my way south.

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Thank you for your service! Next post: the new car.
 
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Then, the Ioniq's replacement: a 2023 Hyundai Kona EV in Style trim with the 64kWh battery pack, in Phantom Black with the light interior package.

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It has a 204-hp powertrain that makes it quite a bit faster than the Ioniq: compare a Saab with a Fiat turbodiesel to a Saab with a two-litre high performance turbo, for instance. It is a smaller car inside than the Ioniq despite being based off the same platform, but you can't get the old Ioniq anymore nor did they come with the 64kWh battery, so if you want the 484-km WLTP range the Kona is your tool (especially for just 50 bucks more per month). It's pretty much as frugal as the Ioniq was, at least if driven sensibly. This is an outgoing car, the factory's preparing for the new generation already, but I hope that means it's properly proven tech by now. I like how most things are in the exact same place as in the Ioniq, and getting the remote app working didn't take long.

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You can disable the rear window wipe from a menu!

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Driving home made me realize how much the bigger battery helps. I didn't need to think about charging at all and only plugged it in to an AC charger during a coffee break because it felt like the thing to do. It also has 11kW 3-phase charging.
 
Noice. My wife has a petrol Kona and it’s still ace after 5 years. I think the facelifted one looks even better, especially in ev form (sans front grille).
I’ve also driven the EV Kona and found it excellent, if a bit scrabbly when you pon the throttle because FWD.

Other than that it will indeed be very frugal and will get a comparatively huge fast chargibg speed (75 kw)
 
Yeah I'll mostly drive it in eco mode, but tried the Sport mode for fun a few times yesterday. It makes the throttle quite touchy. Eco mode has dark gauges so I'll surely prefer it over the Citroën C8 kitchenware ones on Normal.

Incidentally, I chose black on this first car I have ever specced new, even if there are fun colours available for the Kona, because I'm not a huge fan of the front end and wanted the headlights to blend better on the bodywork 💀 The pre-facelift sort of looked better to me, but then again the facelift improved the interior a lot.
 
Positive news! I got shipped the wrong set of rubber mats because the importer PDF still had the wrong parts number, but I got a correct set now for free. And a Hyundai woolly hat and reflectors and playing cards etc :D
I also sold the mat set shortly after picking up the new car :thumbup:
 
Kona rubber mats fitted, so nice. 50 bucks was a worthwhile investment.

I also noticed the dealership had claimed the Ioniq title so it disappeared from under my name in the traffic database and my bank/insurance app, which is nice. The Niro took forever to do the same, so long that the financing company contacted me in late Jan to ask if I planned to pay off the car, weeks after I had returned it. As of today, the Niro is still for sale online so maybe that dealer just acts slow...
 
First month done, the car is already at 3000km thanks to the delivery trip and a 1000km round trip to Helsinki. It's averaged 15,2kWh/100km so far which is moderately up from the Ioniq's year-round 15kWh average, but I presume the actual year-round average for the Kona will be higher. On the drive south I played around with the highway driving assistants, but there was so much side wind I preferred to drive myself. On one occasion the smart cruise control also slowed down quite abruptly from 120 to 100 way before the actual speed limit changed, so I tended to cruise at 105 and 125 instead of the auto function.

I was also happy to note that if you arrive at a DC charger with less than 10% battery left, with no other vehicles charging next to you, the Kona will pull a nice 76kW maximum to at least 60% capacity (the point where others joined in on the fun and speeds dropped). In other words, charging stops take about the same as in the Ioniq but it'll get more and go further.
 
I think the massive unneeded braking is a Kia/Hyundai thing. Does yours have the sign recognition thing? Mine sometimes misread things and slows down massively because the sign says ‘max 70kph for trucks only’

Also good to read the chargespeed is as promised. I have some colleagues who drive Leafs/Leaves and think every charge is always 45 min/1 hr because their car charges so slowly. Their face went 😳 when they saw my car shoot up to 220kw pretty much instantly, even at 60% soc
 
I think the massive unneeded braking is a Kia/Hyundai thing. Does yours have the sign recognition thing? Mine sometimes misread things and slows down massively because the sign says ‘max 70kph for trucks only’

Yeah, it does, the full safety suite. I haven't really had it act up that much as it only controls the speed when you're doing 100 or 120 on a motorway and suggests "AUTO" in green when entering the cruise speed. I'm also happy that the car doesn't have the audible speed limit warning which is only implemented on some of the newest cars this year, and because mine doesn't beep when I do 103-105 km/h, I'll probably have to keep it forever. That way I'd also get the most out of the 2ke subsidy which I was granted for this car (they stopped the scheme for 2023 but I ordered this in 2022 so it was eligible).
 
One thing I've always wondered about the speed limit sign recognition thing. If the sign says 80, will it set itself to 80 indicated and then sit there doing an actual 73km/h or whatever?
 
I'm also happy that the car doesn't have the audible speed limit warning which is only implemented on some of the newest cars this year, and because mine doesn't beep when I do 103-105 km/h, I'll probably have to keep it forever.

It's like me and the lane keep assist on the Passat. It says off until you manually turn it back on, and there's a dedicated button for it. I can't imagine digging through some submenu to turn that stuff off every time I get in the car so I'm probably going to be driving a boxy turbodiesel wagon in 2054 still.
 
One thing I've always wondered about the speed limit sign recognition thing. If the sign says 80, will it set itself to 80 indicated and then sit there doing an actual 73km/h or whatever?
Yup. But in my car the difference is just a few kph less than the actual speed
 
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