OK, for what it's worth:
Background: I live just outside of Denver, and learned to drive in my dad's '77 SSII, and very excited to have reservations for both a Traveler and a Terra - will decide truck or SUV when the time comes. Clicked the box for the Harvester Option on both - primarily due to two reasons: 1) very easy to get into long drives very quickly in Colorado, and not sure about charger infrastructure and 2) have never owned an EV or even a hybrid.
So both reasons really are one reason: range anxiety.
Currently driving a '13 Xterra Pro-4X, so my "comfort level" is 270-300 miles of range @ 15-16 mpg, a little bit higher on the highway, so used to dropping $50-$75 on fuel at a time.
On a whim, my wife and I leased a Hyundai Ioniq5 last week - there were some great year end incentives in Colorado, from Hyundai, the federal government and the state. We figured it would be a relatively low cost way to test our appetite for a full EV situation. Lease came with 2 years of free charging at Electrify America, which happen to be at our local Target, where we are 1-2 times per week anyway.
So, one week in, here's what I've learned, hopefully it's helpful to other people who have similar anxiety issues.
tldr: EV driving requires a bit of a mind-set change, but if things continue like the first week, I'll probably end up cancelling my Harvester option.
So: This is not a Hyundai review, but holy cow - after 250 miles of driving I kind of wish we'd spent a little more and got the limited package (we went with the SEL, because "this is only a test..."). I love this little car. On "eco" mode its faster (seat of the pants-o-meter) than my wife's Infiniti QX30, which was a seriously quick car. On Sport Mode? Almost terrifying. I am really going to love electric power.
As for the range? I'm only one charge in, and we are in the worst time of year for an EV, I don't think we've turned the seat or steering wheel heaters off since we took the car home, and because it's still a new toy I'm utilizing Sport mode quite a bit more than I will once it's just the "car" and not "the new car". But we got just over 200 miles, including a couple airport trips in the cold, so 75+mph, and went from 90% to 7%. I plugged it into the free-to-me charger (figuring that out the first time took a couple tries, but I got it) and went into Target, got a coffee and did the grocery shopping.
in 36 minutes, the car went from 7% to just over 80%, at what would have been $36 but was covered under our 2 year deal, and continued on with my weekend.
In normal life, thanks to working from home, we don't drive over 200 miles in a typical week anyway.
So here's my first mind-set change: Rather than look at the fuel gauge every time I get in the car, and find a station if its 1/4 or less, I'm just going to hit Target on Saturday mornings while I grocery shop and stop worrying about it. For us, that's very little change in practical terms, just learning a different way to think about fuel. I wake up early and tend to do the grocery shopping anyway, so in a lot of ways it's more convenient than making a stop at the pumps at random times.
Second mindset change: as I've seen in other threads on this board, rather than wait until the batteries are nearly empty, more of an "opportunity" mindset is needed. Hitting target because we're out of papertowels? 10 minutes on the charger will add about 30-45 seconds to my errand, and some power is better than none.
Third mindset change: I've watched a couple (OK, more than a few) videos on youtube about this - can't wait for the summer to do some weekend trips to the mountains, and rather than choose a destination and find fuel on the way, we'll choose a destination and utilize the charger finding options that are built into the car and charger apps. 200 miles between breaks is enough, hopefully my days of 900+ mile drives are behind me anyway.
I'm looking forward to seeing if this really changes our experience, or just adjusts part of it. Obviously Alpine Loop type trips will still be in the Xterra for now, but as chargers hopefully continue to multiply between now and 2-3 years from now, that could change.
That's it - hopefully this is helpful for some people in a similar situation.
Background: I live just outside of Denver, and learned to drive in my dad's '77 SSII, and very excited to have reservations for both a Traveler and a Terra - will decide truck or SUV when the time comes. Clicked the box for the Harvester Option on both - primarily due to two reasons: 1) very easy to get into long drives very quickly in Colorado, and not sure about charger infrastructure and 2) have never owned an EV or even a hybrid.
So both reasons really are one reason: range anxiety.
Currently driving a '13 Xterra Pro-4X, so my "comfort level" is 270-300 miles of range @ 15-16 mpg, a little bit higher on the highway, so used to dropping $50-$75 on fuel at a time.
On a whim, my wife and I leased a Hyundai Ioniq5 last week - there were some great year end incentives in Colorado, from Hyundai, the federal government and the state. We figured it would be a relatively low cost way to test our appetite for a full EV situation. Lease came with 2 years of free charging at Electrify America, which happen to be at our local Target, where we are 1-2 times per week anyway.
So, one week in, here's what I've learned, hopefully it's helpful to other people who have similar anxiety issues.
tldr: EV driving requires a bit of a mind-set change, but if things continue like the first week, I'll probably end up cancelling my Harvester option.
So: This is not a Hyundai review, but holy cow - after 250 miles of driving I kind of wish we'd spent a little more and got the limited package (we went with the SEL, because "this is only a test..."). I love this little car. On "eco" mode its faster (seat of the pants-o-meter) than my wife's Infiniti QX30, which was a seriously quick car. On Sport Mode? Almost terrifying. I am really going to love electric power.
As for the range? I'm only one charge in, and we are in the worst time of year for an EV, I don't think we've turned the seat or steering wheel heaters off since we took the car home, and because it's still a new toy I'm utilizing Sport mode quite a bit more than I will once it's just the "car" and not "the new car". But we got just over 200 miles, including a couple airport trips in the cold, so 75+mph, and went from 90% to 7%. I plugged it into the free-to-me charger (figuring that out the first time took a couple tries, but I got it) and went into Target, got a coffee and did the grocery shopping.
in 36 minutes, the car went from 7% to just over 80%, at what would have been $36 but was covered under our 2 year deal, and continued on with my weekend.
In normal life, thanks to working from home, we don't drive over 200 miles in a typical week anyway.
So here's my first mind-set change: Rather than look at the fuel gauge every time I get in the car, and find a station if its 1/4 or less, I'm just going to hit Target on Saturday mornings while I grocery shop and stop worrying about it. For us, that's very little change in practical terms, just learning a different way to think about fuel. I wake up early and tend to do the grocery shopping anyway, so in a lot of ways it's more convenient than making a stop at the pumps at random times.
Second mindset change: as I've seen in other threads on this board, rather than wait until the batteries are nearly empty, more of an "opportunity" mindset is needed. Hitting target because we're out of papertowels? 10 minutes on the charger will add about 30-45 seconds to my errand, and some power is better than none.
Third mindset change: I've watched a couple (OK, more than a few) videos on youtube about this - can't wait for the summer to do some weekend trips to the mountains, and rather than choose a destination and find fuel on the way, we'll choose a destination and utilize the charger finding options that are built into the car and charger apps. 200 miles between breaks is enough, hopefully my days of 900+ mile drives are behind me anyway.
I'm looking forward to seeing if this really changes our experience, or just adjusts part of it. Obviously Alpine Loop type trips will still be in the Xterra for now, but as chargers hopefully continue to multiply between now and 2-3 years from now, that could change.
That's it - hopefully this is helpful for some people in a similar situation.
