I'll start out with saying some stuff straight out:
- This car is WAY to expensive, and so is basically any electric car currently on the market to actually recommend.
- This car is way to big for what I actually need, but if you want certain criteria to be met with EVs, you just gotta go big.
- EVs are with over 90% likelihood the future of transportation. But I really don't want this thread to be about this - just take my word as an engineer that I say that with very good mathematical reasoning.
- I made the choice cause I want to be as climate neutral as soon as possible. If you see things different, fine, again, don't want to convert you, at least not in this particular thread.
- Yes, you can have an EV while not having a place to charge over night. It certainly makes things harder (and more expensive) but it can be done.
Now, I knew I was gonna replace my Polo with an EV at some point.
I also knew that if I wanted to effectively use my Polo for much longer, I'd have to get the timing chain replaced preventively AND to get the infotainment upgraded. The Bluetooth music solution I had was quite wonky and having your phone in a holder for maps was just a hazzle.
I also knew what I needed in a car.
I wanted a HUD (heads up display).
It had to have 400+km highway range. Even in winter, that would give me 3h/300km of continuous driving between charges - after which is about the time you should have a short break anyway.
That would also get me from where I live to the north sea with 2-3 charges.
Charging time should be as quick as possible, but under no circumstances longer than 30min IRL (that is 10% to 80%, the typical charging range when stopping for a quick top up).
And the Ioniq 6 fit ALL the requirements.
So I was snooping for a few weeks and a nearby dealer had a year old basically fully equipped one on offer. 20000km, and with being just over a year, I would still have 7 years of full warranty coverage with my driving distance per year.
Then they dropped the price and advertised financing for under 4%. So I contacted them for a test drive, and they immediately responded with a 0,99% financing offer. (That only ran 4 years, but I could still choose a variable final payment after that time, so my monthly payment was the same.)
I knew I would abled to sell my Polo for about 4200€ at that time, and given I would have had to sink 2k€ into it for the timing chain and the infotainment upgrade next year anyway, I decided to go for it.
Been driving it since end of July and am more than happy.
It's insanely snappy and quick to accelerate, even though I explicitly got the rear wheel drive model with "only" 228hp.
But if drive moderately, fully charged, you actually get 500km out of it, actually a little more.
Over the 2300km I've driven so far, it used about 15kWh/100km on average. That's about 7,50€ per 100km. That's slightly cheaper over all than the Polo was.
I've gotten all season tyres on 18" Aero wheels and am selling the 20" that were on it though.
I know my parking talent and I'd just ruin the wheels it came with.
Speaking of parking: I admit I honestly suck at it.
I've been driving long distance basically since day one and consider myself a decent enough driver. Better on the highway than city, but ok regardless.
Only had one incident involving another car where I accidentally dented a car belonging to a car rental place that was parked in second row - and that was me leaving a parking spot.
And for EU standards, the Ioniq 6 is HUGE.
Yet, with all the cameras and sensors, I manage parking this WAY better than the Polo.
A "stupid gimmick" that actually came in handy more than once is being abled to back the car out of a tight spot from the outside with just the key.
Always gets looks, but before you squeeze yourself in, it's just way more comfortable.
The biggest 2 downsides:
It came with the camera mirrors. They really don't offer any benefit. They give you about 1% more range - so maybe a couple of miles at best. They need a decent bit of getting used to. And look stupid. (Though this car really isn't "beautiful" anyway. I don't care about car looks, but I totally see why that matters to some.)
But it was used one, the price was right, so I put up with them.
Still rather would have the typical mirrors, but they certainly aren't unusable.
And insurance is expensive. I pay almost 3 times as much as I did for my Polo. I also got better insurance (the Polo was a bit over 8 years when I got it, so didn't go full coverage), but even accounting for that, it's almost twice as much.
But I honestly can't imagine a car doing better what I need from it:
Get me and a few bags from A to B (regularly around 200 miles in a weekend) as efficiently and comfortably as possible.
If you could charge at home, you could easily without worry extend the typical driving to 200 miles in a day.
What this specific car certainly isn't good at is if you regularly have to move bigger items or a lot of stuff.
It certainly doesn't make sense if gas is about as cheap as electricity.
It also doesn't make sense if you have to drive as fast as some German drivers do want to. (Don't get me wrong, going a constant 100-130km/h - 60-80mph - doesn't drop range below the 400km/300mile area in summer. But some people in Germany have a cruising speed of like 180kmh or over 110 mph, and that's just not feasible for long distance driving in an EV right now).
But if you're going to spend that kind of money on a similar combustion car anyway - this certainly won't be a worse car.
Also already know the first 2 points this car will have to proof itself.
We'll be doing a few days over my birthday up north which is in December, so we'll see how 700+km in a day in winter is doable with this car.
But that will just be the dress rehearsal so to speak for our holiday in Sweden next spring, which will be about 1300km of distance one way.
- This car is WAY to expensive, and so is basically any electric car currently on the market to actually recommend.
- This car is way to big for what I actually need, but if you want certain criteria to be met with EVs, you just gotta go big.
- EVs are with over 90% likelihood the future of transportation. But I really don't want this thread to be about this - just take my word as an engineer that I say that with very good mathematical reasoning.
- I made the choice cause I want to be as climate neutral as soon as possible. If you see things different, fine, again, don't want to convert you, at least not in this particular thread.
- Yes, you can have an EV while not having a place to charge over night. It certainly makes things harder (and more expensive) but it can be done.
Now, I knew I was gonna replace my Polo with an EV at some point.
I also knew that if I wanted to effectively use my Polo for much longer, I'd have to get the timing chain replaced preventively AND to get the infotainment upgraded. The Bluetooth music solution I had was quite wonky and having your phone in a holder for maps was just a hazzle.
I also knew what I needed in a car.
I wanted a HUD (heads up display).
It had to have 400+km highway range. Even in winter, that would give me 3h/300km of continuous driving between charges - after which is about the time you should have a short break anyway.
That would also get me from where I live to the north sea with 2-3 charges.
Charging time should be as quick as possible, but under no circumstances longer than 30min IRL (that is 10% to 80%, the typical charging range when stopping for a quick top up).
And the Ioniq 6 fit ALL the requirements.
So I was snooping for a few weeks and a nearby dealer had a year old basically fully equipped one on offer. 20000km, and with being just over a year, I would still have 7 years of full warranty coverage with my driving distance per year.
Then they dropped the price and advertised financing for under 4%. So I contacted them for a test drive, and they immediately responded with a 0,99% financing offer. (That only ran 4 years, but I could still choose a variable final payment after that time, so my monthly payment was the same.)
I knew I would abled to sell my Polo for about 4200€ at that time, and given I would have had to sink 2k€ into it for the timing chain and the infotainment upgrade next year anyway, I decided to go for it.
Been driving it since end of July and am more than happy.
It's insanely snappy and quick to accelerate, even though I explicitly got the rear wheel drive model with "only" 228hp.
But if drive moderately, fully charged, you actually get 500km out of it, actually a little more.
Over the 2300km I've driven so far, it used about 15kWh/100km on average. That's about 7,50€ per 100km. That's slightly cheaper over all than the Polo was.
I've gotten all season tyres on 18" Aero wheels and am selling the 20" that were on it though.
I know my parking talent and I'd just ruin the wheels it came with.
Speaking of parking: I admit I honestly suck at it.
I've been driving long distance basically since day one and consider myself a decent enough driver. Better on the highway than city, but ok regardless.
Only had one incident involving another car where I accidentally dented a car belonging to a car rental place that was parked in second row - and that was me leaving a parking spot.
And for EU standards, the Ioniq 6 is HUGE.
Yet, with all the cameras and sensors, I manage parking this WAY better than the Polo.
A "stupid gimmick" that actually came in handy more than once is being abled to back the car out of a tight spot from the outside with just the key.
Always gets looks, but before you squeeze yourself in, it's just way more comfortable.
The biggest 2 downsides:
It came with the camera mirrors. They really don't offer any benefit. They give you about 1% more range - so maybe a couple of miles at best. They need a decent bit of getting used to. And look stupid. (Though this car really isn't "beautiful" anyway. I don't care about car looks, but I totally see why that matters to some.)
But it was used one, the price was right, so I put up with them.
Still rather would have the typical mirrors, but they certainly aren't unusable.
And insurance is expensive. I pay almost 3 times as much as I did for my Polo. I also got better insurance (the Polo was a bit over 8 years when I got it, so didn't go full coverage), but even accounting for that, it's almost twice as much.
But I honestly can't imagine a car doing better what I need from it:
Get me and a few bags from A to B (regularly around 200 miles in a weekend) as efficiently and comfortably as possible.
If you could charge at home, you could easily without worry extend the typical driving to 200 miles in a day.
What this specific car certainly isn't good at is if you regularly have to move bigger items or a lot of stuff.
It certainly doesn't make sense if gas is about as cheap as electricity.
It also doesn't make sense if you have to drive as fast as some German drivers do want to. (Don't get me wrong, going a constant 100-130km/h - 60-80mph - doesn't drop range below the 400km/300mile area in summer. But some people in Germany have a cruising speed of like 180kmh or over 110 mph, and that's just not feasible for long distance driving in an EV right now).
But if you're going to spend that kind of money on a similar combustion car anyway - this certainly won't be a worse car.
Also already know the first 2 points this car will have to proof itself.
We'll be doing a few days over my birthday up north which is in December, so we'll see how 700+km in a day in winter is doable with this car.
But that will just be the dress rehearsal so to speak for our holiday in Sweden next spring, which will be about 1300km of distance one way.
