I've been driving since I was 15 and half, so that is about 39 and a half years. 36 and half of those years I've owned and driven a lot of different cars. From a Ford Pinto at the bottom (thankfully, it was not mine) to a rented Lambo Huracan in 2017, which was the most expensive car I almost wrecked. In 2020 to save money on gas and wear and tear on our Sienna which was my wife's commute car, I decided to lease a Hyundai Ioniq EV. It was at the height of COVID, and before the auto market went nuts! Interest rates were almost zero, and dealerships were desperate to make deals. It was still the days where you could bargain invoice. So we made a deal for a fully loaded Ioniq Limited EV, which was the top trip level for a 36 months lease, $3500 down and $199 a month. My wife being a Pharmacy Tech, was considered an essential worker, which got us an additional discount, so the monthly payments dropped to $190 a month. I was able to get $2800 in rebates ($2000 from the State of California and $800 from PG&E) which helped me recoup most of my down payment.

The Ioniq EV wasn't much....with only a 38.3 kWh battery pack, 138 hp and 170 miles of range (150 real world) it didn't have much power and range, but damn it drove really good. Having an electric motor it was still really torqy, and smooth as glass drivetrain. It served my wife really well, and basically costed less than $30 a month in electricity. By the time we turned it in, it had 36,000 miles on the odometer. Costed us ZERO in maint over the almost 3 years we leased it. I previously road as a passenger in other EV's previous to the Ioniq, including a Model S and Model X, but this was my first "getting my feet wet" experience with EV's.

Now I currently own and lease the following EV's:

2022 Polestar 2 (lease)
2023 Chevy Bolt EUV (daughters car)
2023 Tesla Model Y (own)
2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5 (lease)

How do these cars all differ from one another? Each car has it's own distinct personality, tech, and driving feel. The only thing they have in common is the extremely smooth drivetrain and instant torque. Here's how I would describe each:

Polestar 2:
The Polestar is a spinoff from Volvo, with their DNA distinctly apparent. It's a sporty fastback, and the dual motor version was built for performance. It has pretty good tech, but is way behind Tesla in it's software implementation. Mine lacks the Performance Pack, so it doesn't have the handling of say a BMW, but it's very competent nonetheless. It has a very smooth drivetrain, and suspension slightly on the stiffer side. The front seats are comfortable enough, but back seats are definitely lacking. Where it does excel is straightline performance. It can put to shame many more expensive high performance cars, especially now that it has the Performance Upgrade, unlocking nearly 500 HP. Performance wise, it's almost up to par with the Model 3P. Among all my cars, this is my sleeper car, shocking many drivers of high performance vehicles.

2023 Chevy Bolt EUV:
This is a car that someone who drives a Corolla, Civic, Camry or Accord would be totally comfortable with. It has really nice tech, but its not overwhelming. It's as "regular" car as it gets. I would call it the perfect starter EV. It's comfortable and spacious, and extremely efficient. Because it has an EV drivetrain, it's extremely smooth. And it has decent power which won't get you in trouble. It's also inexpensive. I was sad when I heard Chevy cancelled the Bolt, but now that they "uncanceled" it, I feel relieved.

2023 Tesla Model Y
I've talked a lot about this vehicle in my Model Y thread, but I'll just mention that this is the best engineered EV out all the other ones I own...IMHO of course. Tech wise it's far ahead of the competition. Everything about this car was well thought out when designing this car. I call it simple, but elegant. Just to give some examples, comparing the Polestars infotainment screen to the Model Y's, there are times when the infotainment screen in the Polestar becomes sluggish. There have been instances when it has crashed and rebooted. Last year it had a software bug where the AC would stop working and I had to reboot the infotainment screen. Never had an issue even once in 3 months of owning the Model Y. As far as performance, the Model Y has the same glass smooth drivetrain, but doesn't have the straight line performance of the Polestar...but it also has more than 50 hp less and is heavier. Also the Model Y Long Range is not a performance vehicle, but a family mid-size SUV and way outranks the Polestar in size, comfort and utility.

2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5
I haven't spent enough time yet with the new Ioniq, but I suspect it's not far behind the Model Y. It seems to be well thought out and designed, with some chin rubbing design decisions. One thing I can say is the crash mitigation and lane keep tech is way too aggressive. It beeps and screams at you, pulls at the steering even if you drift just little in your lane. 100 percent I'm going to be turning all that stuff off! Anyway when I spend more time with the Ioniq, I'll be able to talk more about it in detail

 

At the risk of derailing this thread I don't understand what GM is doing. They should have poured most of their resources into the Bolt or variants of instead they are going for big, heavy and super expensive low volume EVs. Why? Tesla started with a big expensive car out of necessity back then BOM was much higher. In fact GM should have kept the Volt name but made it into a BEV similar to the Model 3. It's like GM is intentionally trying to fail in the EV market.

Still can't decide if I like the looks of the Ioniq but I do love that it is unique.

 

Most of their sales come from big trucks and SUV's, which have high profit margins. I think they are trying the same playbook with big SUV EV's. Not sure if that strategy is going to work or not, only time will tell.

I actually love the way the Ioniq 5 looks. It kind of reminds me of a giant mid-80's VW GTI! There are definitely some design decisions that leave me scratching my head, but mostly they got things right

 

I understand the strategy problem is these things have a giant 200 kWh and they weight ~9000 pounds. Basically the Hummer EV with a different body. GM should be pushing out the Bolt in huge volumes. Put other way would you buy any other GM EV besides the Bolt?

The Equinox EV looks promising but I think it's FWD.

 

For $2k, you can fix that!


I may try and sneak this past the wife some day.

 

I'm tempted 🤣. But I have the Polestar for now if I need to teach some sports cars a lesson

 

I bet you are the only person in the world with that combo of vehicles in their garage.

 

I bet you would win that bet
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Btw, I also have a 2013 Sienna as well

 

i like that guy's video style. good stuff.
i find nothing attractive about arizona, lol.