Featured Hyundai IONIQ - Prius competitor?

Few more interesting things from their website:
- 97g CO2
- same tires as Prius, both 15 and 17
- hatch loading lip seems quite high
- longer by 3cm, wider by 5cm
- starts at 20,080$

And that's all, no technical specs whatsoever.

 

Where do you see that? I looked at Toyota.co.kr and the 3rd gen 2015 Liftback Prius there is shown as 21.7 km per liter city, 20.1 highway, and 21.0 combined on toyota.co.kr. That works out to 49.4 mpg (US) combined. The Korean mpg figures appear to be closely similar to US EPA ratings. The 4th gen Prius has a promo page there but not full regular marketing so I suspect it is not for sale yet in Korea.

I didn't look for or compare the Ioniq vs Korean interior dimension specs yet but you need to compare them with Korean Toyota specs since the details of the measuring conventions could be different between Korea and US Toyota Prius interior spec numbers.

 

Lots of technical specs out there. You probably just didn't hit the right page. Oh and the 17" tires are slightly wider on the ioniq than the gen IV prius, but 15" are same size. Here is automobile magazine comparison to the prius gen IV specs
Hyundai Ioniq Fully Revealed with New Platform and Hybrid Powertrain

 

Thanks for the reference:

These lines reminded me of my decision to go Prius instead of Honda in 2005:

The Hyundai's engine makes 104 hp and 108 lb-ft of torque, compared to the 95 hp and 105 lb-ft in the new Toyota Prius.

. . . the battery capacity, but the electric motor is good for 43 hp and 125 lb-ft of torque, compared to 71 hp and 120 lb-ft in the Prius.​

When I looked at the Honda Civic hybrid and Prius, I noticed the ratio of electric motor to engine power favored the Prius. It is electric motor operation that gave the Prius better City than Highway mileage.

In contrast, the Honda Civic hybrid always had better Highway than City mileage. Both the relative ratio of ICE-to-motor and City-to-Highway MPG told me the Honda was a light-weight hybrid. So looking at the IONIQ versus 2016 Prius:

• 41% ~= 43/104 # IONIQ
  
• 75% ~= 71/95 # 2016 Prius

Now this is 'back of the envelope' engineering, Bob's rule of thumb so take it as an opinion because we don't have test articles.

Bob Wilson

 

No, I don't mean those kinds of specs but something along the lines of weight? That sounds to me like a basic spec but Hyundai is keeping it secret it appears

 

Zero to sixty times generally aren't the norm on US car company sites. The people interested are likely already checking the magazines that run their own tests.

You aren't partaking of adult beverages while posting here?

Korea uses the EPA test cycles. The rules for determining road drag might be different. The EPA window sticker numbers are also rounded, and the Prius could actually be 49.5mpg in the US to compare to the 49.4mpg in Korea.

Battery capacity the other metric needed. Sounds like the Ioniq will have the larger. So while it can't accelerate as quickly or go as fast as the Prius under EV, it might be able to stay in EV for longer stretches of cruising.

 

Again, using my engineering 'rule of thumb', I'm expecting:

	model	ICE hp	EV hp	EV/ICE	City	Hwy
1	2010 Honda Insight	88	13	15%	40	43
2	2003 Honda Civic	85	13	15%	40	43
3	2016 Hyundai IONIQ	104	41	39%	44	44.25
4	2001 Prius	58	40	69%	42	41
5	2016 Prius	96	71	74%	54	50
6	2016 Prius Eco	96	71	74%	58	53
7	2010 Prius	98	80	82%	51	48
8	2004 Prius	76	67	88%	48	45

• Notice the 2010 Prius has the stronger electric motor needed for a true plug-in hybrid.
• IONIQ projected mileage are the average of the two lower and higher hybrids.

Bob Wilson

 

The motor specs between the Prius and Sonata are not directly comparable because the Prius MG2 motor is combining battery power plus power being power-split generated by MG1 (to electrically simulate CVT) whereas the Sonata is just using battery power when assisting the gas engine. The Toyota has to have a bigger MG2 vs the Sonata motor in order to perform its eCVT tasks that are performed by a conventional automatic transmission on the Sonata.

The real limiting factor for both cars is probably battery output power rather than motor specification capability. I'm doubting that the Toyota pack has significantly better output capability than the Hyundai pack but I don't have the exact numbers in front of me right now.

 

Hyundai released 51 or so mpg under the Korea test. We don't know if that is city, highway ore combined. We do know the gen3 Prius is 49.4mpg combined there.

 

Those hp numbers are from a IONIQ magazine article. Are they the same for the Sonata?

The Honda Insight-1 was a two seater, aluminum body car. Since we don't know its weight, modeling is more difficult. I was just showing a quick estimated performance based upon the degree of hybridness.

Bob Wilson

 

No and your degree of "hybrid ness" is conceptially inaccurate.

The hyundai (and bmw, and vw) system differs from the honda system in 2 important ways.
1) there is a clutch between the motor and and engine. This requires more advanced electronic control of engine rpm to link up smoothly which was not arround for the insight. It also allows the missing mode from IMA - Motor on (either supplying power or regenerating) with motor stopped. This is the only mode the ima doesn't have that hsd system does.

2) Power was lower in ima than these systems. As you say only an effective 13 hp could be supplied or regenerated. The sonata on the other hand adds 39 hp with both a more powerfull battery and motor.
2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid and Plug-In Hybrid First Drive – Review – Car and Driver. This is comparable to 21 hp in the gen IV prius, but at times the sonata may be able to do more and the gen IV prius likely can supply 36 hp like the gen III, but not at peak engine hp. We still don't know the number in the ioniq. My guess is its peak is around 40 hp, but it can't use it all when the engine is at peak hp. 141 hp total or 36 hp has been thrown out. The ioniq's battery and motor are slightly less powerful than the 2016 sonata hybrid.

The hsd system uses the majority of mg2's motor size as a torque converter. In normal mode Mg1 and electronics set the engine in a hsd system to the proper hp. Part of this engine power is used by mg1 to generate electricity and feed it to mg2, thus transforming torque at the axle to be correct for the hsd transmission. The headroom at peak engine hp is much lower than mg2. In the case of the gen IV prius its only 26 hp. My guess is it can be 36 hp at other times like the gen III, for instance low speed accelearation.

On the hyudnai system gear changes are used instead of motors to set gear ratio between the engine and axle. It is likely at accelaration at low speeds this is less efficient than the hsd system. That is where I would assume lower city mpg is generated. On cruise control over 25 mph though the hyundai system can lug the engine with an efficient transmission and engine. Therefore I would expect someone like wayne gerdes to outperform the prius on his long distance runs on this system.

The insight-1 was around 1900 lbs. Its low frontal area for low drag and low rolling resistance gave it advantages over the prius, especially with the manual gear box and a skilled driver. The vw xl1 is the technical child of this, using cfrp instead of aluminum on the shell, and adding a bigger battery smaller engine to improve city mpg.

The ioniq wants to be a more normal car than the insight-1, but give you better gas mileage than the gen III prius. My guess is they have done that, but the gen IV prius is out. If you are doing a lot of city driving then the phev or bev version are your obvious choice over the hybrid. With tax incentives my guess is the phev will cost about the same as the hybrid but wtih less cargo room.

Hyundai anounced that they expect to sell 77,000/year for all 3 versions hybrid, phev, and bev. That is much better than hyundai does today, but small compared to prius liftback sales. I think they have a good shot.

 

The 2016 Sonata is 154hp ICE and 51hp motor. The PHEV has a more powerful motor, so that will likely be the case for the Ioniq PHEV.

Thee are two basic types of hybrids; mild/weak and full/strong. Which a car falls into depends on whether their electric side can provide propulsion without the ICE at all. Hyundai's system is a full hybrid.

Hybrids are fuel efficient because they limit the times the ICE is used in an inefficient manner. A stronger electric side can make doing so easier for a specific system, but that may not be so for another one. Then a power hybrid can have a strong motor and still guzzle gas, relatively.

 

Notice that on the Hyundai Ioniq acceleration video on the YouTube there is a figure of 15.5 km/L, that equals to 36.5mpg. You would really need to try pretty hard to get that figure with a Gen 4. Some people that drove it like crazy didn't go under 45.

 

Here a scheme of the specs, taken from Hyundai blog. com



(Kr) (Kr) (Kr)
Prius Ioniq Ioniq
genIII 17" 15"

City 21,7 20,4 22,5
HWY 20,1 19,9 22,2
Combi 21 20,2 22,4 Km/lt

Combi 49.4 47.5 52.7 mpg

Yes, it seems the Corean cycle is very close to EPA; for the Prius gen3, 49,4 vs 50 mpg combined.
For the Prius gen3, the source is Toyota.Kr, that not differentiate btw 15" and 17".

Given the big difference between the 15" and 17" in the Ioniq, the comparison with the Prius IV is not straightforward, at this point.
We can just say that a Prius IV non-ECO using the 15", should be just a little under the combined of the Ioniq.

Now the point is: what tire size have been used for Prius IV EPA testing, that not differentiate btw 15 and 17? That is: if EPA don't require to test different tire sizes, can we assume that Toyota tested the 15" and not the 17"? I think so, but who knows.

In EU we have Auris and Prius tested on the EU cycle, ending with two different FE values for the 15" and 17", a difference of about 5%. Whether this apply in general, i do not know.

News for US:

Hyundai Reveals Ioniq US-Market Launch Date

 

Without knowing how the car was driven or left idling since the last time it was reset, we can't say how that figure equates to an official rating.

It seems the Ioniq might actually do slightly better in the city.

I posted earlier that Korea uses the actual EPA test cycles. Now their rules for determining what road load to use on the dynamometer might be different. By the gen3 numbers, it appears to be the same.

In regards to tire size used for testing, it should be the one the company expects to sell the most of.

 

Yes Trollbat, me too i've found mentions that Korean test procedure is basically the EPA, but given that some detail could vary, i'm not stating anything too absolute. Anyway, the comparison with the Gen3 gives a quite precise idea.
Regarding the tire size that a company will use for EPA testing, i would rather suspect is the one with better results, but it could be me

About the pic with the Corean test figure, this is the story, is a leak from a presentation leaflet:

Hyundai Ioniq Fuel Economy Figures Leaked

 

This is good news:

At last we know this thread will end . . . in 9-12 months.

Bob Wilson

 

or die a slow painful death in the meantime. not with a bang, but a whimper.

 

Nice, they announced the car 9 months before the supposed US release. I guess so that the hype has the time to go down XD

 

By then there should be at least 100-120,000 new 2016 Prius on the USA roads . . . and 3-4 hold outs sustaining this thread.

Then we'll ask them for the pictures of their new ride . . . half will be 2016 Prius and the others include at least one VW product. We call that 'chickens coming home to roost.'

Bob Wilson