‘Designer’ family cars like this one sometimes pay key practicality compromises when you explore what usable space 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.
The one you might just have missed is that, like the related Kia EV6, the Ioniq 5 doesn’t have a rear wiper – which, in bad weather, can be a persistent bugbear. It also has a cabin heater that seems to struggle to consistently keep its glasshouse from misting up in chillier, damper conditions – and so you constantly seem to be reactivating the car’s rear demister, and cranking up its blower, to maintain decent visibility in bad weather.
You sit high up 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, rather than with that battery wrapped and packaged at least partly around you, as other manufacturers do, in order to lower the overall height of electric cars.
The airiness is no illusion, either, as the Ioniq 5 is extremely spacious, with plenty of head room and space across the shoulders, while rear passengers can actually use the adjustable rear seats and stretch out. Sliding second-row seats make for up to 780mm of rear legroom – as much as a BMW i5 offers – while a flat floor (very much like the one offered by the Nissan Ariya, and the Renaults Megane- and Scenic E-Tech) opens up potential for some neat storage solutions. Our test car’s centre console, for instance, slid fore and aft by about 200mm, to allow occupants to step between the front seats easily, or to move the position of the cupholders, storage area and armrest it conveys. Elsewhere, Hyundai fits a sliding drawer-style glovebox rather than the more typical hinged one, which is particularly spacious.
The downside of having batteries and motors under the floor, though, is that the Ioniq 5’s boot is quite shallow, although no more so than in a Volkswagen ID 4. The ‘frunk’ under the bonnet isn’t huge, though it’s bigger than some we’ve seen, and you could certainly carry a couple of charging cables within it, or a soft bag or two. If the likes of Hyundai really intend for charging cables to be kept in places like this, though, it really ought to provide a remote bonnet release for the bonnet on the car’s keyfob for more convenient access.
Overall, you’d say the Ioniq 5 remains an appealing place to travel, with an original cabin design, and a standard for material quality that wavers in places, but is generally quite high. The very comfy (but optional) ‘premium’ seats have a laid-back lounge mode, with a leg rest that pops up to make waiting for your car to charge at least a more pleasant experience than spending your time in a nearby McDonalds. The car’s standard front seats however, while decently adjustable (and both heated and ventilated), weren’t found ideally comfortable by our testers, their lack of lumbar support and head restraint positioning in particular causing slight complaints over distance.
Hyundai Ioniq 5 multimedia – 3.5 stars
The Ioniq 5 infotainment touchscreen works logically enough; but while it impressed us reasonably well in 2021, the development of touchscreen tech over the last few years now makes it look a little unresponsive – and has also presented some usability issues.
As regards navigability, it can be controlled via a row of physical shortcut buttons (with separate climate controls also included, laudably). Annoyingly, though, there’s no physical ‘home’ button for it; and the one on the margin of the touchscreen is positioned in the far top right corner, rather than more conveniently for right-hand drive users.
As the system’s booting up, it can take a few seconds to switch to ‘home’ when you first need to use it; and things like the heated seats and heated steering wheel require a couple of taps and swipes on the screen, when really they should be more accessible.
