I have already driven the first couple of thousand kilometers with our large joint used electric car experiment and I am starting to have a specific opinion about this car. I have shared my daily impressions quite actively on your Twitter account and I have also described the main aspects here in the blog. There are several more big articles planned about choosing tires, insurance and installing a home charger, but this time I want to create a slightly more positive article. What are the good things that make me happy about this car?
Precise driving
Since I drive this car every day and it is my only car, I want to talk about the driving experience the most. The most noticeable difference from “normal” cars is the precision of electric cars. In other words, there is no unnecessary roaring, you don’t have to wait for the turbine to spin – press the accelerator pedal and the car accelerates instantly. And in the other direction – release the accelerator pedal and the car brakes. This allows the car to be easily driven, in principle, with the help of only one pedal. As a result, when you get close, driving is super precise and a joy. I’d even say it’s comparable to the phone world. “Normal” cars are like pod phones, but an electric car is like an iPhone – the best that the world of phones can offer us right now!
Comfort
Since Hyundai is not a premium car, I can’t talk about some kind of superior sound insulation (although I don’t have a problem with this aspect either) or a cosmically complex technical solution, but all this is far surpassed by silence. It’s not that the electric car doesn’t make any sounds (this one bubbles, this one hisses), but in general, you only hear the surrounding traffic noise and not the sound of the car itself. It seems like an insignificant detail, but when you spend a lot of time in the car every day, you start to really appreciate this nuance.
In terms of comfort, I would also like to mention the heating. I had often read opinions on the Internet that the electric car heats up the interior very quickly, but since I could not complain about this aspect in my “normal” cars, I did not pay much attention to these statements. Now that I have an electric car myself, I conclude that the heating here really works very quickly and well… at first. When the car is initially warmed up, the heater starts to strike and from time to time it is quite cold in the car. But I have observed the same thing in other electric cars and I think that energy is simply being saved here. Heating uses a LOT of electricity.
Public transport lanes and free parking spaces
These two aspects are often cited as strong arguments in favor of buying an electric car, however, every day everyone will have their own experience and not all of these benefits will make significant sense. For example, I can park my car in the center at work and free parking in the city is not critical for me. Yes, it’s cool to park the car on the street for free on some pleasure trips, but it’s not important to me. For others, it will be different and this bonus can save you 100-150 euros per month purely on parking spaces.
As for driving on public transport lanes, not everything is so clear-cut here either. First of all, we don’t have that many of them in Riga, and even if we have come to a section of the road where there is such a lane, there is usually public transport that occasionally stops at bus stops or some fujaki with their diesel trash cans. Of course, it is a pleasure when you can fly almost the entire Brivibas street from LMT to Alfa unhindered along this lane, but everyday life is not so rosy.
Plus, it should be understood that sooner or later both of these bonuses will expire.
I still like the Hyundai Ioniq as a car
Now about the particular car itself. I previously drove a Hyundai Ioniq hybrid of the same generation for several years and about 50k kilometers, and found it to be quite roomy for a family of four. It’s efficient and provides exactly the technology I need – adaptive cruise control and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto support. That’s all, I don’t really need anything more. From the minuses – the Hyundai Ioniq has a relatively weak suspension, and on our roads every ten thousand kilometers a suspension part will have to be replaced. These aren’t expensive repairs, but it’s something to consider. Plus, within a few years, my car ran out of a rear view camera and eventually ran out of a navigation map reader.
The current electric Hyundai Ioniq happened to be a bit better equipped for me. There are leather benches, whose regulation memory function works in an incomprehensible way for me. There is a hatch here, the meaning of which I have not yet understood. Only the sunroof, as usual in all cars, lowers the roof and in the morning my head now hits the ceiling. There is an improved adaptive cruise control that can stop and resume driving when the car in front starts moving. There are lane warning sensors, which I think are too gentle (that is, they beep too often). There is wireless phone charging, which I don’t use on a daily basis, because the phone is connected to the car with a cable and it also charges through it. The low beams are way better than the hybrid I had. So far, everything works fine and I don’t need any other comfort or safety technology. Well, or it would be more accurate to say – I am not ready to pay my hard-earned money for them. Plus, I really like the way the interior of the Hyundai Ioniq looks, and actually the car from the outside as well. Yes, it’s subjective, but this is my car and my blog, and subjectively this time is fine!
Although both cars are very similar in principle, there are such and such differences in driving. I have the feeling that the electric Ioniq “floats” on the road more. The car copies the bumps in the road more and tries to deviate in the direction where the bumps lead. It’s a strange feeling because it wasn’t with the hybrid version. Perhaps something is not correct in the suspension, but nothing like that was discovered during the technical inspection of the car. I’m already used to the fact that this car drives differently.
Of course, not everything is beautiful and rosy. An electric car with such a small battery (my car has about 30 kWh) needs to be charged very, very often. Of course, it can be theorized that we drive the car until it is empty and then charge it full, however, in everyday life the decision-making to charge it is much more nuanced and charging happens almost every day. The situation should improve significantly by the time I introduce charging at home. This project is in progress and I think that I will be able to tell you about my experience soon. Below is a picture for the haters – two trash cans in one frame! 😉
Also read other articles in this experiment series
Since this experiment will take place over a longer period of time and I plan to regularly inform about my experience with this car, I invite you to visit my Twitter account @krizdabzas well as read the rest of the articles in this experiment series:
I would also like to say a big thank you to the supporters of this experiment. Used car dealer BRC helped to choose and bring an experimental car to Latvia, and the insurer If helped us get it electric car CASKO.
2023-11-14 08:01:33
#reasons #love #electric #car
