classicrock40 t1_jdvp27a wrote on March 27, 2023 at 3:23 PM

This and things like this https://jalopnik.com/public-ev-charging-sucks-bad-payment-apps-electric-car-1850184391 are what make me think twice. Personally, I don't need a charger in a city or garage, but they need to be as easy, reliable and ubiquitous as gas stations. And why oh why do we have to go down the cell phone/multiple standards route.

SeaworthinessLeft88 t1_jdvwnej wrote on March 27, 2023 at 4:13 PM

Yeah, EV charging infrastructure needs work, but that article is sort of hilarious in the lack of preparation of taking a road trip in an EV. They leave for a fairly long road trip at 48% (first mistake). They don’t plan their route at all for L3 chargers nor take the time to actually click on the EA charger that’s “coming soon” (second mistake). Then they end up having trouble at an L2 station because they didn’t update the app on their phone (entirely a user issue).

There are third party apps for finding chargers (like PlugShare), and most EV owners understand that route planning based on chargers is required at this stage of adoption.

We are still in the early adoption phase of EVs, and I don’t blame on people not wanting to make the leap right now. I own an Ioniq 5 myself, but I’m not ready to take it on certain road trips (I mentioned in another post that NH is a fast charging desert). But the driving experience of the I5 is so far ahead of an ICE. I hate driving our Subaru during those few long road trips we make a year.

And there really isn’t an issue with standards per se. I hear this complaint/concern a lot, but there is basically one standard (CCS) that almost all automakers other than Tesla uses. Tesla has their own proprietary standard, and always has, but they’re opening up their superchargers to CCS vehicles. There’s chademo too, but that’s sort of an abandoned Japanese standard that never really took off here. The Nissan Leaf is pretty much the only vehicle that I’m aware of that is still manufactured with chademo L3 charging. L2 is the same, J-1772, across all manufacturers except Tesla which sells/includes a J-1772 adapter for their vehicles.

classicrock40 t1_jdvygmu wrote on March 27, 2023 at 4:25 PM

good info - as someone just thinking about an EV, these articles just don't help. Tesla seems to be the Apple/iPhone of EV and none of this is going to get better without some govt intervention/regulation.

I've been looking at the Ionic. What insights can you give?

SeaworthinessLeft88 t1_jdw0z9b wrote on March 27, 2023 at 4:41 PM

I have nothing but good things to say about the car. I ended up getting the RWD SE model, so it lacks some of the fancy stuff at higher trims. It handled fine in the limited amount of snow we’ve gotten this past winter, and the range increase of RWD vs AWD is something to consider. Still, it’s admittedly an expensive car even at its RWD base trim models. If you meet income requirements for the federal tax credit, it’s important to note that the I5 does not qualify for the federal tax credit due to the 2023 models being manufactured in Korea. They have plans to start manufacturing them in the US, but my understanding is that they’re at least a couple of years away from that.

Some owners of the 2022 model have reported 12V battery issues around the 1 year mark, possibly from faulty ICCUs, possibly from excessive drain from third party apps “waking” the car to harvest data (one possible source has been speculated as utilities on reduced rate programs retrieving updates from the car hundreds to thousands times a day). Hyundai has supposedly fixed the early ICCU issues and just released a patch that prevents third parties from pinging the car so much, but it remains to be seen if later models will have 12V issues at the same frequency.

Competitors would be VW’s ID.4, Tesla’s Model Y, and Ford’s Mustang Mach E. I believe all of those are also pretty well reviewed, and some (if not all) would get the federal tax rebate. If you don’t qualify for the federal tax rebate anyway due to the income cap, then the I5 is more competitive in price. All EVs do qualify for a $3500 rebate through MA’s EV-mor program (no income or manufacturing origin requirements), and I was able to get that without any issues.

Oh, and just to add some insight on superchargers: Tesla has already started rolling out the magic dock upgrade to their chargers that enable CCS charging. But the I5 has had some issues due to the higher voltage architecture (800V versus 400V of Tesla). Those issues are supposedly being patched soon by Tesla, but as of now, the I5 only charges at reduced power at the few superchargers with magic docks.

JJ2o2o t1_jdxvlxs wrote on March 28, 2023 at 12:04 AM

There is a price cap on the EV-Mor program.

https://mor-ev.org

It was bumped up to $55K as of last November. Ioniq 5 AWD Limited trim exceeds this amount - so just make sure if you are banking on getting the rebate.