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Bold, cleverly configured hatchback-cum-SUV was a trailblazer in 2021 but where does it stand today?

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When it first appeared in the UK in 2021, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 made a powerful statement for a car maker looking to really capitalise on the competitive advantage in electric cars that it had already spent close to a decade building.

From its chiselled styling, to its 1980s retro body proportions, to its eye-catching ‘parametric’ lighting features, this 12/10th-scale hatchback was made to stand out. Several years into its life cycle, it still does.

However, while this car has been through incremental changes since that market launch, including the addition of the red-hot drift-enabled Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, the rest of the mid-sized EV market has been seeking to aggressively rein in Hyundai’s established lead when it comes to fully electric family cars.

This class is easily the most competitive, with the most genuinely appealing options, so life for the Ioniq 5 isn’t quite as straightforward today as it was when it first arrived.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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02 Hyundai Ioniq 5 2024 review front panning

'Skateboard' EV platforms like the one the Ioniq 5 first blooded in 2021 give manufacturers the opportunity to approach car design in a wholly different way. This has led some to fantasise about reviving classic car silhouettes – such as, say, the Lancia Delta’s – riding on modern electric car platforms.

Still, who would have expected Hyundai to launch the ‘new Delta’? The Ioniq 5, it claims, is actually a homage to the original Hyundai Pony of 1975, but it undoubtedly draws classic European hatchback styling cues from so many different directions, only to run them through some automotive equivalent of a photocopier enlarger. (This car is actually a 4.6m long, but its unusually long 3.0m wheelbase somehow makes it look much smaller in photographs.)

Even though the Ioniq 5 is now quite a common sight on the roads, its size still surprises people. It looks like a hatchback in pictures, but it's really a crossover SUV. It's a fantastically clever piece of design.

It’s a car of plenty of visual interest: sharp creases, hidden door handles, pixel-style parametric lighting and a front LED running-light bar that appears after dark from behind a panel that’s very much opaque in daylight. It’s a clever trick.

The Ioniq 5 is still quite the design statement, so for the 2024 ‘facelift’ Hyundai hasn’t seen fit to make many changes. The new 19in (pictured) and 20in wheel designs are the most obvious, but the front daytime-running lights have been subtly altered, and the rear spoiler has been extended. Finally, in a triumph of common sense, Hyundai has finally added a rear windscreen wiper.

Hyundai and Kia beat most of the rest of the industry to developing an 800V architecture with their Electric Global Modular Platform (E-GMP). It’s still cutting-edge, and its modularity has allowed the company to update parts of it to keep pace with emerging rivals.

Two lithium ion battery packs of differing sizes are offered. The bigger of the two grew from just under 73kWh to 77.4kWh in 2023, with the power output increasing from 214bhp to 225bhp for the single-motor model, and from 301bhp to 321bhp for the dual-motor. Battery size then grew again to 84kWh in mid-2024, though the motor remained unchanged. The same 2024 update gave the entry-level model a boost from 58kWh to 63kWh, with power still at 168bhp.

DC charging for the car should be rapid in the truest sense, thanks to an 800V electric architecture of the sort first seen on the Porsche Taycan. It allows for peak rapid charging at 225kW on early cars, and 260kW on mid-2024 cars and onwards. The latter also gained a standard battery heating system, battery pre-conditioning and heat pump across the range, to limit deterioration of efficiency and charging speed in cold temperatures.

The car’s chassis is all-steel, suspended via MacPherson struts at the front axle and multiple links at the rear, and by steel coil springs. ‘Smart-frequency’ dampers, intended to improve body control and ride comfort, were added as part of the car’s 2022 facelift.

INTERIOR

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06 Hyundai Ioniq 5 2024 review dashboard

‘Designer’ family cars like this one sometimes have key practicality compromises when you explore what usable room and convenience they offer - but the Ioniq 5 opens up to reveal really surprising passenger space and very few noticeable penalties for its outward good looks. 

You sit medium-high in the car, with the steering wheel slightly too far away than is ideal for tall drivers, though it’s adjustable. The cabin feels airy, and it gives you a great view out in most directions, but you’re left in no doubt that you’re sitting atop of the car’s skateboard-style drive battery. 

The Ioniq 5 originally didn’t come with a rear wiper, which was a real bugbear in bad weather. Its cabin heater also struggled to consistently keep the glasshouse from misting up. A rear wiper was added in 2024, but because we tested it in summer, we’re not sure whether the HVAC has been sorted. That said, its temperature control was still a tad erratic.

The airiness is no illusion either, because the Ioniq 5 is extremely spacious, with plenty of head room and space across the shoulders, while passengers in the back can use the adjustable rear seats and stretch out. Sliding second-row seats make for up to 780mm of rear leg room - as much as a BMW i5 offers, though there isn’t much room under the front seats for the rear passengers’ feet.

A flat floor opens up potential for some neat storage solutions, such as a centre console that slides fore and aft by about 200mm. It was redesigned in 2024 to gain a button panel for the heating and cooling of the seats and steering wheel, which were functions that were previously buried in a touchscreen menu.

With that foible sorted, the Ioniq 5’s user interface has become one of the easiest to use of any modern car. There’s a separate panel for the climate controls, and a generous selection of physical buttons for all the key functions. 

Boot space is quite generous by volume (520 litres is only a little behind the Renault Scenic’s 545), but the floor (below which there’s a reasonable amount of room) is quite high and the luggage cover quite low, making the space less usable in practice than it seems on paper.

Hyundai Ioniq 5 multimedia - 4.5 stars

By the time of our 2023 review, the Ioniq 5’s infotainment touchscreen was starting to look and feel a little dated, with no home button, some latency issues, no wireless functionality for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and the lack of easily accessible controls for the heated seats.

For the 2024 facelift, Hyundai clearly took these criticisms to heart and eradicated all of them. The screen has gained newer, more up-to-date graphics, as well as improved processing power so that it responds quickly to prods and swipes. The update also replaced the quirky graphics on the gauge cluster with more conventional, but clearer alternatives.

The row of physical shortcut buttons remains and there's now a new one that takes you to the home screen. As before, there are two ‘star’ buttons, one on the dashboard and one on the steering wheel, and these can be programmed as a shortcut for a decent number of functions.

As of 2024, you no longer need a wire to charge or connect with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The old USB-A ports have also been replaced with USB-Cs.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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00117 Hyundai Ioniq 5 2024 review

The Ioniq 5 might either be described as pretty unremarkable in this section, or surprisingly fast, depending on which version you buy. In spite of its modest power hike, our mid-range single-motor model is now markedly less powerful than an equivalent Polestar 2, and less powerful still than a single-motor Tesla Model Y - so it starts at a bit of a competitive disadvantage. But you’d never really guess as much from the way it goes about its business.

We performance tested a 225bhp 77.4kWh version in 2023, and on a chilly day at the test track, our test car got away from rest under full power smoothly but urgently enough, and without troubling its traction control. It hit 60mph in 7.5sec, a couple of tenths behind Hyundai’s official 0-62mph claim. A single-motor Polestar 2 is now a sub-6.0sec prospect over the same trip, though, and over the 30-70mph ‘motorway slip road’ acceleration test, it’s fully a second and a half quicker than this Hyundai.

I swapped into the Ioniq 5 from a new Santa Fe hybrid and the Ioniq's brake pedal was touchier than the Santa Fe's. You get used to it, but it's not ideal and you'd think this would be consistent across electrified Hyundais.

While there are times at faster cruising speeds when the Ioniq 5 begins to feel like it could use just a little more power, most of the time it picks up speed with plenty of authority. The updated 84kWh model’s bigger battery adds some weight, and thus 0.2sec to the 0-62mph time, though this doesn’t really change the overall picture.

So an Ioniq 5 won’t win a drag race against its more potent rivals, but we’d imagine its driver will be more relaxed than most. That’s because this is an EV that you can drive exactly as you would choose to. There’s a decent selection of drive modes, including an individual one, and the steering wheel paddles let you have anything from full one-pedal driving to complete freewheeling.

There’s an adaptive mode too, and if you choose to use the left pedal, it’s reasonably linear as well, with the driver display showing you precisely how much pressure you can use before actuating the friction brakes.

RIDE & HANDLING

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14 Hyundai Ioniq 5 2024 review front cornering

Hyundai opted for quite soft, comfort-first suspension tuning for the Ioniq 5 when it first appeared in 2021. This gave the car a particular selling point when compared with so many electric rivals (which typically aim for a more sporting dynamic character as a complement to their responsive powertrains) - and Autocar wasn’t alone in responding to it very positively.

But Hyundai’s customers gave different feedback. Plenty of owners’ forums contain remarks about soft handling and poor body control. So Hyundai opted to fit firmer-rated ‘smart-frequency’ dampers to the car for its 2023-model-year update, which have changed the dynamic character of the car, but only very subtly.

The transformation isn’t stark and the ride hasn’t been shorn of all of its compliance or even made irritatingly reactive as a result. In fact, it’s still one of the more softly sprung cars on the market. It’s characterised by a very relaxed long-wave gait, just without the extreme floatiness of the original.

However, the combination of large wheels (19in or 20in, depending on the trim level) and suspension that is ultimately built to a cost means that the wheels can clatter through potholes with a slight lack of sophistication. Cruising refinement is fair if unexceptional. We measured a 2023 77.4kWh model with 20in wheels at 69dBA at 70mph, though our 2024 test car on 19s seemed subjectively a tad quieter. In any case, a Skoda Enyaq is more hushed still.

The same likeable big-brute energy extends to the Ioniq 5’s handling. Body control is quite loose and over mid-corner bumps, and you can sometimes feel the two tonnes wanting to go somewhere that you perhaps weren’t so keen on. The stability control keeps it all safe but you’d never describe this car as precise or keyed in to the road.

On the other hand, settle into the car’s movements and it can be amusing to drive down a twisty road. The steering on rear-drive models is smooth and intuitive if a tad indirect, and the chassis balance feels very rear-wheel drive indeed. The electronics can be fully disabled, which is rather amusing if a little silly.

Dual-motor all-wheel-drive models are characterised by strong traction and are much more point-and-shoot.

Assisted driving – 3 stars

Driver assistance systems are something of a weakness of Hyundais. The normally useful ones tend not to work as well as rivals’ systems, and the officially mandated ones are often extra annoying.

That's the case in the Ioniq 5. It’s good that the lane keep assist and overspeed warning are easy to turn off (you simply hold down the lane and mute buttons on the steering wheel for a few seconds), because they’re so poorly tuned and easily confused by UK road markings that they’ll drive you mad in short order if you don’t. Unlike other Hyundais, the Ioniq 5 doesn’t have a driver monitoring camera, so at least you’re rarely bothered by attention warnings.

The adaptive cruise control, which is fitted as standard, is quite poor as well, having a tendency to brake too hard and too early for no apparent reason.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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01 Hyundai Ioniq 5 2024 review lead cornering

The mid-sized EV market is relentlessly competitive, with countless alternatives to choose from, some offering lower prices, others more luxury. Overall, though, the Ioniq 5 is pretty well priced, starting at just under £40,000 for the 63kWh Advance model. Even this entry-level version gets a good level of equipment, with heated seats, dual-zone climate control, keyless entry and a heat pump all fitted as standard.

From there, the range splits in two. N Line and N Line S offer similar amounts of equipment to Premium and Ultimate respectively but add sportier Ioniq 5 N-inspired body styling for a small extra cost. They’re all mechanically identical, though.

At £45,845, our single-motor, 84kWh Premium test car pictured here represents quite a nicely rounded package, being very similar in price to a Skoda Enyaq 85 Edition.

When we tested a 77.4kWh version in the winter of 2023, we saw a test average of just 2.5mpkWh, suggesting that it suffered quite a bit in cold temperatures. It also underperformed on its rapid charging test, with a weighted average charge rate of 121kW.

Things were rosier for the 84kWh car in the summer of 2024, where we saw a 3.0mpkWh test average, with 3.3mpkWh doable if your route doesn’t include too much 70mph cruising or spirited B-road driving. It also put in a much better performance at the DC rapid charger, with a weighted average rate of 177kWh. The newly standard-fit heat pump and the battery pre-conditioning (which can be engaged manually or by setting the navigation destination to a rapid charger) mean that cold temperatures should affect it less.

All this suggests that a summer range of 250 miles should be possible. Cars like the Skoda Enyaq and Polestar 2 now better the Ioniq 5 for efficiency and range, but you can still do a lot worse.

VERDICT

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16 Hyundai Ioniq 5 2024 review verdict

If its maker's transformation from mid-market value brand to aspirational zero-emissions market leader continues as it has begun, the legacy of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 - the car that started it all - is surely secure.

In 2021, this was precisely the statement of mission and ambition that its maker needed. Since then, the pace of progress has been brutal, and in the 2023 version of this review, we said it had fallen behind in key areas. The 2024 update is a remarkably purposeful one, though, and addresses almost all of our concerns.

The Ioniq 5 still lags a little behind the best for running efficiency, and its assisted driving systems are downright poor. Meanwhile, its road manners are perhaps a little unsophisticated but actually likeably easy-going, with a sense of fun.

The multimedia is now right up to date and the user interface is top-notch, range and charging speeds have been improved, and winter performance should prove to be better too. Meanwhile, it’s just as much of a design statement as it ever was, and innovatively and generously practical inside, with a plush sense of luxury.

The Skoda Enyaq and Renault Scenic E-Tech remain the sensible choices in this class, but the Hyundai Ioniq 5 manages to combine plenty of rational credentials with some genuine character, and that’s quite the achievement.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As part of Autocar’s road test team, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews, comparison tests, as well as the odd feature and news story. 

Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s eight-page road tests, which are the most rigorous in the business thanks to independent performance, fuel consumption and noise figures.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce PhantomTesla RoadsterAriel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren SennaRenault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.