Featured Hyundai IONIQ - Prius competitor?

It will drag on for years of someone doesn't step up.

After all, a growing problem in forums & blogs is enablers... those who don't speak up.

The direct approach is quick and leaves no doubt.

 

Historically, the worst were kissed by:

de moderators.

Bob Wilson

 

bob, i had no idea.

 

Sorry, Bob, that all we have from Hyundai is a promise from their chief R&D guy that the Ioniq will better the Prius in highway mileage.The car is in a development phase where public information is only starting to get released which is frustrating for all of us. In the meantime we speculate and there's nothing wrong with that. I certainly wouldn't term the discussion a "disaster".

 

History has proven otherwise.

Mere speculation easily transforms.

We've experienced the outcome firsthand, many times. It gets ugly.

 

First off, the "?" in the thread title is perfect and reflects what we know.

Thank you! @GasperG, good luck!

Bob Wilson

 

I'm making a car myself and it will be better than Prius, Volt or any of that nonsense.
- 0 emissions
- Excellent aerodynamics
- infinite mpg
- lightweight
- simple and easy to maintain

Scroll down for prototype image.
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That's about how some car companies and many journalists talk about their products while they are not even remotely finished. There are more factors to the vehicle then mpgs and hps, and achieving them all is the problem. I didn't lie about the vehicle In the picture above, it is just as described - I just forgot to mention some things - same as when manufacturers claim e.g. 1l/100km (280mpg) for a PHEV in Europe, just because it can go first 80km on electricity alone. They just tend to forget to mention that you have to actually charge it with electricity that costs money in the first place, and that after first 100km mpg changes drasticaly.

I like the idea of market diversity, but I do dislike that some manufacturers are trying to cheat in their advertising. One woman even asked me why I bought Prius when there are cars that have triple the fuel economy. I know that people may be more informed about hybrids in USA, but in Croatia two most asked questions when they see my car are: where are you charging it and what is the range? (I don't have PHEV btw). People are very sceptic of the hybrids and I just hope that some companies won't give them a bad reputation because of specific models. E.g. some people think that hybrid are way more complicated than normal cars (because they have heard of Golf GTE), some people think they use more gas than normal cars (thanks to Clarkson and that Peugeot hybrid that actually does), etc.

 

we're not that swift over here either. human beings have a propensity for picking up and retaining what they want to hear, and disregarding anything that doesn't fit their preconceived notions.

 

Prius liftback sales peaked in 2007, and I doubt they will ever be that high again., that is part of the hunger for some other automakers to get more serious in the hybrid market.
Toyota Prius Sales Figures - GOOD CAR BAD CAR

The liftback peaked at 181K units in 2007 market share would get higher with the auto recession, but volume has fallen to 114K this year.

Toyota knew the liftback was not enough and launched the "prius family" with smaller less expensive version (prius c/aqua), A wagon (prius v), and a plug-in hybrid version (prius phv now on hiatus). These sales peaked in 2012 at 237K. Low gas prices and competition has dropped sales to 184K last year. That gave the family a market share of 1.06%, slightly lower than the liftback alone's market share of 1.12% in 2007. Share of the prius family and liftback may recover a little this year, but to really grow the hybrid market (2.21% in 2015, versus 3.01% in 2012 when IIRC it peaked.

From the liftbacks numbers alone in 2007, you have to look at the 2015 family numbers, only 3573 higher than the liftback alone in 2007, and you have to think toyota needs some more competition if its going to actually grow the hybrid segment. it can't do it by itself, but its been trying. Toyota/Lexus sold 76% of hybrids in america in december, versus 79% in december 2007. The tiny difference is a growth in ford's and hyundai's hybrids, honda actually shrunk a lot.

So I can only look upon it as a good thing that both hyundai and ford now see enough of a hybrid market that they are going to build dedicated hybrid/phev platforms. The most sucessful hybrid, phev, and bev are on dedicated platforms, so this can only add to competition.

Maybe ford or hyundai will find some things toyota has not, and they can finally push the market over a 4% ceiling

 

Looks like, Hyundai released some additional info today

2017 Hyundai IONIQ: This Is Hyundai's Prius-Fighting Hybrid

Some power train and architecture information is provided. But it seems it is no more powerful or fuel efficient than Prius. But subjectively shape seems good, and have DCT transmission giving some control to the user. My guess is, it would little lighter than Prius (may be 100 pounds), and real world fuel economy, city it my guess in upper 40s, and highway around 50-52, about same as Prius.

Also, it seems Hyundai is using Li-Polymer vs Li-Ion, potentially little lighter.

But it does provide some competition to Prius, hopefully, it improves Prius even further.

BTW, here is some info directly from Hyundai

IONIQ: A Leap Forward for Hybrid Vehicles | Hyundai Media Newsroom

Edit: It seems my understanding of total output for this car is incorrect. It seems total output is 150HP. If that is correct, it is considerably more HP than Prius, and would have better acceleration. Irrespective of total power I still think on Highway, Ioniq would have better in gear acceleration.

Hyundai Ioniq exterior-interior, tech specs revealed



Thanks

 

There are Korean fuel efficiency figures out, but I know nothing on their testing procedure.
The skinny tire 'eco' model tops at 53mpg, and the more loaded model at 48mpg.
Hyundai Ioniq Promises Up To 53 MPG (22.5 km/l)

 

We should make sure people know YMMV and the skinny tire is not skinny like bmw i3, its the same as gen IV priusl 195/65R15. Perhaps we should simply call it the 15" tire. The 17" is 225/45R17, slightly wider but again a virtural copy but slightly wider than the gen IV prius 215/45R17.

I'm expecting that will get 2 different epa numbers for the different tire sizes, but likely will differ from the korean test.

 

As I said on the other thread, the Ioniq design is more likely to be liked than disliked.

Seriously Toyota, I can't imagine what motivated you to come up with a very divisive design such as Gen 4, after 20+ years there was really no need or value in trying to be so different to the rest. In NS4, Toyota had a great starting point for G4, what a loss, a great opportunity lost.

 

Truth be told I noticed that India and some parts of Europe have better opinions about design than US reviews. I don't even recall reading one bad comment about the design on Indian webites (note: huge market). I think they just repeated what they are doing with Prii for the last 2 decades - made a unique design. While I can think of visually similar cars to Tesla, Volt and even Ioniq, I can't think of one even remotely similar to the 2016.
IMHO that is a good thing.

 

Unique design was good when hybrids were truly unique and way ahead of everyone else in terms of tech. If the Ioniq comes very close to Gen 4 technically, that itself is enough to make people think twice about getting a strange looking Prius and that is just one competitor. Here in the UK, the likelihood is that other Toyota hybrid variants will sell well, Prius Gen 4 has received a very mixed response so far. My point is that it didn't have to be this way. Toyota did a great job on the Engineering side, all they had to do to make it more mainstream, was make it better looking and a bit more 'normal' - at least that is what they were saying showing off NS4 as far back as last year.

 

There was such an active "kill the Prius" propaganda drive for so long, if the IONIQ (or any other hybrid) can escape those slanders, GOOD ON THEM!

This anti-Prius crap was started and sustained by dummies like Bob Lutz and later VW with their cheat-diesels. They called it 'marketing' but in reality it was evidence they could not compete. Fortunately, both have gone away and are offering their 1st and 2nd generation products to Toyota's 3d/4th (IMHO 5th counting the NHW10.) I suspect Ford did not go with a standalone, optimized hybrid just to avoid letting it be a target of the anti-hybrid crowd.

So I'm looking forward to seeing their EPA roll-down coefficients as well as the 2016 Prius. With these numbers we can really understand how good of a job they did. Then maybe we can get some 'mph vs MPG' charts too.

Bob Wilson

 

I hope they get 60 MPG in the EPA, thats only way to improve hybrids and Prius and every other vehicle. By having great competition!

So far we know this:
- single motor hybrid system, 43hp if I remember correctly
- DCT transmission for hybrid
- 1.6l GDI Atkinson cycle 40% efficiency

I dont see how it can be as efficient as Prius by using much simpler system. It will be considerably down in the city, real life. But HWY? Lets see. GDI might help and lets hope Toyota brings D4S eventually to Prius.

Korean efficiency of G3 Prius is 21km/l, for all models including 17". Ioniq is 20.4l for 17" and 22.4 for base 15".

- Size wise, this seems a lot more like Auris Hybrid competition.
- Price should be lower than Prius (again, like Auris Hybrid)
- Tech wise, base model is much less equipped. For instance 5" media display is standard. But top model has some cool features, like vented seats and LCD intrument panel. Top of the line safety stuff naming wise (not available in current Hyundais).

I think i saw "fun to drive" as one of the main points, literally copy for Toyota presentations. Amazing and not needed.

If they manage to come to smooth powertrain of G3 Prius and similar real life mpg, I think it will be great success. Thats real question when they use single motor system with 43hp and DCT transmission.

First gen Sonata Hybrid had huge issues with powertrain while I was checking it out. Lets hope this one is much better done, they actually replaced their head of R&D due to problems in general.

As to the people hyping it up, thats great. It happens always. When Ford came out with their 2nd gen hybrids long time ago (3-4yrs?), forums were in uproar on how great they are, how great mpg is, how Toyota is going down with their obsolete technology... 2 years later Ford hard to downrate the MPG, sales dropped with people complaining about low mpg and Ford kept their hybrids in USA mostly with low sales while Toyota sold 1.3m Hybrids worldwide last year.

We need competition as customers and Toyota needs competition as a company. Not competition in PR's or in forums, but real cars that are competitive vs petrols and diesels and that people buy in large quantities. Much was said previously of Fords, last year they sold 50k hybrids worldwide vs 1.3m of Toyota... Accord hybrid was much better than Camry Hybrid in all reviews, they sold 223 last month and they only offer rest of the hybrid lineup in Japan. There needs to be competitive hybrid program in other manufacturers to give us better hybrids from Toyota and Lexus. Not just in tech, but in sales. Sales is what matters because that shows how competitive the car/technology is.

 

p.s. Due to low price of gas, sedan sales are down worldwide. I hope Hyundai puts hybrids into their SUV offerings as well. This would work great in their small SUV for instance (Tucson).

 

In the image at the top, I'm guessing the 22.4km/l is the average, because below it, those are the City and Highway numbers (22.5km/l City and 22.2km/l Highway)

On Toyota's Korea page (TOYOTA), the Prius E is listed with 21.7km/l City and 20.1km/l Highway

For the MPG crowd, that's:

Ioniq 15" : 52.92 MPG City and 52.22 MPH Highway

2015 Prius E : 51.04 MPH City and 47.28 MPG Highway

But like Trollbait, I dont know anything about their testing procedure either.. quick googling didnt find anything useful.. I would assume if they publish those numbers, they are somehow uniformly tested.. but then again, we're supposed to have some kind of standard here too and we all know how that works out

 

I'll wait out a generation of two for them to get the kings out of the system and prove the reliability and then consider buying it. Or buy it used a few years after release.

^This train of thought (mine too) makes new car entries into the segment troublesome.