Which is better, the new Hyundai IONIQ 5 or the Kia Niro EV? Both are part of the Hyundai group of vehicles but they approach the concept of EVs very differently. Automotive Engineer David Chao goes through his usual technical and quality inspection and points out exactly what he likes or doesn’t like about the two electric cars.
So hello everyone this is david from automatic press i have two really interesting electric cars right here i have the hyundai ioniq 5 which is all new and then i have the kia nero ev which is interesting because of course the nero comes in number of different variations not just through the electric car so these two cars are not exact competitors they both
Of course belong to the hyundai group but it’s really interesting to compare the two because they’re in a similar price range and they also kind of drive very similar so let me walk you through first of all and do the engineer’s audit and quality check and show you what the differences might be between these two cars and i’m going to point out three things i like
Better about the ioniq 5 and 3 things i like better about the kia and then you can figure out for yourself which might be the right car for you so let me get right into it so i’m going to be doing my engineer’s audit which includes a couple of interesting things that maybe other social media people might not do so first of all to test these two cars properly you
Got to check out everything meets the specification so i’ve already measured the tire pressure on both cars and adjusted to the manufacturer’s suggested pressure you’ll be surprised how much difference just the one or two psi might make in terms of driving feel and i’m going to check for paint quality which includes using this gauge which measures the thickness
Of the paint and then finally i’m going to use a caliper to measure the panel alignment and the gap now this is not quite the exact one we normally use in the auto industry but this is the easiest one to use for now and then finally i’m going to talk about the driving feel so those are some of the things i’m going to do so stay with me as i go through and check
The quality of each of these cars so first i’m going to check the paint thickness of the ioniq 5 now in terms of the overall paint quality it’s uh excellent through and through from beginning to end i noticed no pigmentation issues or orange peel in fact i would say the paint fit and finish and the quality of this onik5 is as good as what you will find in very
Expensive six figures car but what about the thickness well this is aluminum here so i’m going to check the steel panels check here it’s 114 micron and in the doors 141 a little bit thicker which is very common 131. so usually you want the paint thickness to be between 100 to 120 as a minimum and the european cars tend to have a thicker paint as much as 130 to
150 micron so 115 a little bit thinner as you go higher up in the roof here so this is more or less a standard thickness it’s about averaging about 120 125 let’s take a look now on the kia okay so it’s 128 here 115 130 and 119. so very similar again about 120 125 as average you can use the um thickness gauge to figure out whether the car ever had an accident if
You had an accident and they repainted over the paint thickness will be much much thicker like 200 micron and you can usually tell if it had gone through some body damage but in terms of the general finish of the paint i think the ioniq 5 is a little bit better than kia not a huge difference maybe five percent better because i did notice a little bit more orange
Peel on this side and not quite as smooth but they’re pretty close and surprisingly good and in fact i was looking at the body gaps as well i’m going to use a caliper right now to measure it and let you know if the body panels are lined together really well and whether or not it’s better than the japanese let’s take a look the reason why this is so important is
That how the body panels come together is a reflection of the quality for the whole car we always say as an automotive engineer if they can put the body’s panels together really well everything else falls in place so in terms of the alnic v versus the kia niro let’s take a look at the body gaps and so what i’m doing is i use a ping pong ball to kind of go back
And forth between the gaps to see first of all if they’re aligned together really well and secondly whether or not the gaps are consistent and what the actual gap might be i’ve also gone around and checked all of the body gaps on both cars and what i can say is that it’s surprisingly the kia is slightly better in terms of the overall panel alignment what i mean
By that is that on the kia if you put your ping pong ball across and try to figure out the alignment of the two panels both in terms of the front section and also the side panels it’s surprisingly good almost as good as the lexus model if you could believe that in fact if you go to the rear of the this suv and look at the panel alignment for the hatch shockingly
Good and of course in this uh hyundai it’s also very good and the gaps are ranging from about 4 to 4.5 millimeter in terms of the actual gap between the panels and that’s actually a little bit better than the standard i come across usually gaps are five to seven millimeters sometimes as much as seven or eight millimeters which will be way too wide but on the
Hyundai it’s consistently four to four and a half or five millimeters so it’s excellent and so if you ever doubt whether korean can build a really good cars well here’s a proof both of them has shockingly good body panel alignment in fact on the kia niro the range of the gap is sort of a 3.5 to about 4.5 millimeter depending on where you measure and once again
That is world class even lexus is in that neighborhood so those are my quick conclusion in terms of the overall quality the paint job is excellent i would give it a minus on this one maybe b plus on this one and the body alignment i give this one maybe a minus and on this one a solid a because it’s just really well aligned together now let’s take a look inside
And see what the fit and finish might be all right so i’m now inside the hyundai onik5 and this is probably the most cool thing about this car because honestly it looks like something out of the future in fact i keep joking that if apple was truly going to design an electric car this is probably how it’s going to look inside and out and it’s definitely the coolest
Electric car you can buy now but in terms of the interior let me just do a quick quality trick so i just simply use my fist and do a check to see everything fits and nothing rattles or squeaks i’ve done this already a couple of times and so far everything fits really well none of the panels are out of alignment and there’s no rattles at all when i’m driving so
Absolutely first class in terms of the interior fit and finish and what’s really cool about this car is not just the design elements but the fact that you get some of the latest infotainment system and the latest gadgets everything from augmented reality a hit up display to a dual 12.3 inches panel to even the drive selector is kind of unique in the stock oriented
Style which is a little bit odd and it requires some getting used to again it goes along with this futuristic looking design this entire center console moves forward and backward and there’s an ottoman style mechanism that you can lift this up and if you’re just waiting for someone maybe at the airport you can lie down almost flat and just take it easy and take
A break so all these cool features are on this particular car but the three most important things i like about this ioniq 5 compared to kia is first obviously as i mentioned it’s got a cool design it looks futuristic which means that it’s going to look good for many years to come and so it should retain good resource value so that’s the first thing is that it
Has a lot of technology built in a more up-to-date infotainment system and generally speaking more up-to-date features than the kia niro ev and secondly it is a bigger car with more room in fact there’s so much room in this car you’ll think that this is a full-size suv and this is one advantage of electric car because there’s no drive shaft underneath and so
There’s a lot of space because of the really long wheelbase and so lots of room for the front and the back seats are very comfortable and so i think it’s a little bit more practical also than the kia granted kia is obviously a little bit cheaper but the price difference isn’t as big as you think and finally the third advantage of the aolonic 5 compared to the
Kia is that this one comes in two configurations rear wheel drive or all-wheel drive which is important for winter driving here in canada whereas the kia niro ev only comes in front-wheel drive so that’s one advantage for this one what about something that i’m not too crazy about well overall what i would say that there’s still a frustration when they convert
Everything to the infotainment system and so all the control more or less is in here thankfully we do have some buttons here for volume control but even just changing the temperature requires you to touch this up and down and it’s fine if you can look at it but the problem is if you’re driving and you’re trying to figure this out well all this is a touch panel
So it makes it a little bit more awkward even trying to turn on the seat warmer and so forth requires you to go to get into the menus so this is the trend and all electric cars are moving that way but this is where the kia is advantageous because the buttons that they have but overall obviously the ioniq 5 is a more interesting car to own and drive which is a
Bit of an unfair comparison because this really competes with kia’s up and coming ev6 electric car that’s the one it should be compared to this one but let’s hop into the kia now and let’s take a look and see what kind of advantage there is on the neural side compared to the aolonic 5. so now i am in the kia niro ev and one of the first things i should point out
Is that nero is available in different configurations including the normal gasoline engine nero as well as a hybrid a plug-in hybrid and this ev so you get a lot more choice so that gives you a better price range as well the nero is cheaper than ioniq five that’s one big advantage if you don’t have to have a full electric version and you don’t mind buying the
Plug-in hybrid it’s even cheaper still but you do only have front-wheel drive and there’s no overdrive available at least with this ev version but keep in mind that the nero ev only comes in front-wheel drive because electric motor drives the front wheels but in terms of the advantage of this one compared to ionic 5 well surprisingly it drives a little bit better
It’s a bit sportier the steering has a better feedback from the road it’s a bit stiffer in terms of overall feel and so it kind of feels like a sports suv versus the elnik 5 which is uh clearly designed to be a very much a comfort oriented one but if you like driving something that’s kind of fun to drive surprisingly the nero is better than most other electric
Cars i’ve driven quick steering and tracks really well the second advantage is the fact that this is still a conventional design in terms of the interior so you still get all the buttons for radios the temperature is easy to adjust the rear defrost the front defroster everything is a conventional style and even the transmission shifter as this is sort of like a
Range rover or jaguar style of the dial for the shifter so this is easy to use and so there’s lots of buttons and personally i still think nothing can beat having physical buttons so i really like about that and you still get the up-to-date infotainment system which is shared across the hyundai group and you still get the electric um instrument cluster here as
Well so everything is modernized but with advantage of having physical buttons and controls which i think cannot be beaten and overall because the nero is cheaper than ioniq 5. there’s a cost advantage or there’s a little bit more value associated with buying this one in terms of the quality again i did a little bit of a rattle check earlier all the plastic
Components look solid none of the gap seems to be out of alignment and both the exterior and interior of this kia niro is really well built again i was surprised at how well it’s built so no problem with the interior fit and finish so now it’s time to take both of these cars out for a short drive and tell you what the differences are as i mentioned i think
This one does drive a little bit sportier but let’s talk about it on the road a little bit more okay so we’re now taking the hyundai ioniq 5 fret drive as i mentioned multiple times this is a super cool car inside and out and when you drive it you might be shocked at how smooth and refined and quiet it is kind of like a lexus almost in many ways but this one
Has a very refined super smooth feel that has a kind of a luxury car feel you could almost put a genesis badge on this and it will it will fit right in aside from the very silky smooth ride it has plenty of power and of course substantial torque because of electric motors so you step on the gas and this thing takes off zero to 60 in about five seconds which
Is hard to believe but that’s kind of sports car territory the steering isn’t quite as tight and as sporty as the kia niro ev because this is probably geared toward more of a luxury car market but very predictable steering and a really a good balance of the feedback from the road and a good on-center feel in fact when you make quick turns on this car it has a
Very agile feel to it in fact this car is very quick to respond regardless of the type of driving you do and so it provides a level of confidence sometimes that is missing in other evs or plug-in hybrids for example my wife has a toyota rav4 hybrid which functions as a purely electric car and it’s not as smooth not as fun to drive and not as predictable as this
Alnic vibe so first class overall driving feel extremely well balanced and not quite as fun to drive perhaps as a sportier nero so obviously this isn’t a sports car by any means but it has sufficient agility and a really good road feel that provides generally speaking pretty good level of fun to drive factors so you’re not going to get more driving this car but
Your passengers will love it because it has so much space front and back and it is just so ultra smooth regardless of the road condition that you might be driving in so there’s lots of quirky things that might find it a little bit unusual but you get used to it everything from the way you select your driving mode to the way you navigate the infotainment system
Requires a bit of a learning curve but once you learn it you’re going to appreciate all the cool factors that you find in this car and all the lighting inside at night is quite amazing so really appreciate hyundai’s effort with this if i were to buy an electric car that is kind of like a crossover suv this is probably on top of my list because it’s definitely
One of the most interesting and fascinating cars to arrive our shores from hyundai so i am now in the kia nero ev and the driving feel is definitely the strength of this car it’s surprisingly agile very solid on the road and the ride is not harsh and so if you’re ever wondering because of the humble design outside you might ask does this thing actually drive
Okay well it’s more than just okay it’s sporty it’s firm and it drives better than most of other electric cars i’ve driven including the newer electric cars from tesla if you can put this in simple terms it’s like a sports sedan because it provides pretty good road feel the steering is not super light you can put on the different mode here by the way so i can put
In a sport mode it doesn’t make a huge difference but it is definitely a bit sportier in terms of the transmission shifting and the steering feel overall i kind of really like driving this thing it’s about the right balance of firmness and also comfort and uh because his electric car is also very quiet the acceleration is brisk unfortunately it is front-wheel
Drive only so if you step on the gas too much and because electric motors have maximum torque right from the beginning you can spin the front wheels really easily so that’s about the only downside they should really offer the overdrive version but the new ev6 is coming out so that’s obviously the one to get probably but if you’re buying something right now i
Would say there’s nothing wrong with buying this kia niro ev for good value good price and just overall very agile and flexible feel in terms of the on the road driving so i give it a high marks for that maybe as much as b or b plus for driving feel and overall i think it’s actually better value than most people realize just because a lot of people are looking
At other electric cars not necessarily this one please go ahead and take a drive on it and you might just fall in love with this one so that’s just a summary for the kia niro i hope you learned a lot from this two comparison of the two electric cars a lot more to come your way from my channel thank you so much for watching i’m signing off for now
Transcribed from video
KIA NIRO EV vs HYUNDAI IONIQ 5 – THE BATTLE OF THE EVs By AutomotivePress
