Living electric: Hyundai Ioniq – Month #2

We are now into the second month of our ‘simulated owner’ test with the trusty fully-electric Hyundai Ioniiq. The majority of the driving has been done by our Dictator Trevor Long. All up we’ve racked up 1500kms of pure electric driving. But in recent weeks I’ve spent some quality time in the Ioniq, which is important given my commute to EFTM HQ is 36.1km each way whereas Trev’s is 2.4km!

For an EV car the Ioniq does have what appears to be poor range, around 230km on a single charge. For me that would mean around six trips to and from the office, but that’s not how a low range EV car should be operated.

In actual fact I charged the Ioniq every night once I got home. Between 5pm and 7.30am it was plugged into my garage power point, returning to full charge the next day. Now of course there are going to be questions about how much the power costs and where the power is coming etc.

Given I don’t have solar panels I assume it’s coming from a coal powerplant, which of course defeats the purpose. But what I have shown is a low range EV car is more than suitable for my lifestyle.

The only problem I’d have is longer trips but given organisations such as the NRMA and Chargefox are rolling out charging stations at a rapid rate this problem will quickly be solved. But having said that the massive level of infrastructure required for an entire electric car community is still a bloody long way away. Which is why we need to have this debate NOW so we don’t stuff it up years down the track.

Interestingly Hyundai announced just last week some substantial updates to the Ioniq range which spans the full range of electrified drivetrains, hybrid, plug-in and EV. The EV will have a more palatable range of 294kms.

Oh by the way, I posted about taking the Ioniq for a daytrip to the Blue Mountains recently. One of our readers remarked something along the lines of what happens if you do a day trip, return home with little charge and an emergency occurs. Well here’s a tip, CALL AN AMBULANCE!