Introducing the IONIQ 5: A car so smart, you're just wasted space
Test driving one of Australia's most popular electric SUVs
So I think I discovered the secret password to get review cars.
It’s the following sentence: “I’m doing an article on Tesla-alternatives, and I think your car would be a good fit”.
It is this proposition which has yielded me several electric cars in the coming months.
First off the rank is Hyundai’s IONIQ 5, specifically the entry-level DYNAMIQ which comes in just under $80,000.
Going from the intentionally noisy racer-boy i30 N sedan, to the whisper-quiet IONIQ was quite the contrast. More than once I got out of the car (much to its protesting) without remembering to turn off the engine.
But what I found to be particularly interesting about the IONIQ was the assisted driving tech.
Or, as I call it, the Potato Mode.
It’s incredible to me that you can sit in a car like a big vegetable, barely photosynthesising, and the car won’t swerve into a wall. In fact, more than once, I had the uncomfortable feeling the car would actually be driving better if I wasn’t there at all.
I first tried the adaptive cruise control while on the Hume Highway. It stayed at the correct speed until someone cut in ahead of me, causing the car to gently break until there was a distance buffer with the vehicle in front. It then calmly went back to 110km/hr.
Well done car, I thought. It had earnt the right to take over the steering.
Sure enough, that also worked well too. The car took over the steering while I loosely held on to the wheel. Perhaps too loosely. I often got warnings that my hands were not in position, not matter where they sat.
I think the car wanted to feel slight resistance against the steering direction. There was something mildly infantalising about the whole thing.
“Put your hands on the steering wheel!” said the car. “There you go. Look! You’re driving! What a clever human. I couldn’t do this without you.”
“My people built you,” I — a person who doesn’t know how a toaster works — thought.
In some other news, the Car Pit is heading to Japan for the Tokyo Mobility show this week.
“Mobility show,” you say. “Like… mobility scooters?”
No. Not like that. It’s the car conference formerly known as the Tokyo Motor Show. It was recently rebranded for ??? reason.
If nothing else, let this be a lesson in the limitations of Google translate.
I’ve managed to grift my way into press passes for myself and my sister, Tamara. She’s a person whose feelings towards cars swing between indifference and outright contempt. Good news for her, the show lasts a whole week!
I’ll be all over socials covering the show, so keep an eye on the Car Pit’s Instagram and the newly created Tik Tok (don’t you start, I’m full of self-loathing already).
See you next Monday when I’ll be reporting from Japan!
Steph