If Hyundai would release a scaled-down version of the Ioniq 5 while keeping all the features, that would be a perfect car in my books.
BHPian shankar.balan recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
One more test drive of the Kona today. It is a lovely car indeed. In every way. Just like my Skoda Yeti was. Perfect proportions. Small footprint, compact, manoeuvrable with a well-weighted steering. Good luggage room. Solid build, good handling. Responsive. comfortable. Not too big of a screen and all. Tactile feel and great switch gear. It has a spare in these days!
It looks like a nice big hatch. A bit like the I20 Active on Steroids and that’s not a bad thing.
The niggles in my head are still on account of the following:
It does (despite that 170mm ground clearance) bottom out on some of the elephantine and sharply inclined, non-banked, un-marked speed breakers of Bangalore, if one misses seeing the obstacle and doesn’t slow down to crawl speed. I drove it all over my neighbourhood’s back streets where there are plenty of these. There is even one place with a huge hume-pipe underground and it is like a sharply defined hillock.
Any car other than a Thar or similar which has really high ground clearance and short overhangs, approach, ramp break-over and departure angles, will definitely scrape the front bumper lip at approach and hit the underside or under-door sills when crossing the hillock and maybe bash the rear overhang at departure.
To overcome this issue, even in my Yeti (which despite its good GC and short overhangs, used to bottom out at times on these self-same speed-breakers under full load, I had put those Rogerab Modulators and they did the trick. I really want to be comfortable that they will work just as well in the case of the Kona.
The anxiety about ‘range’ – basically going Bangalore to Ooty via the Sigur Ghats on a single charge.
The fear about buying a 5-year-old product, especially when they have already released its newer and improved Version 2 / Gen 2 in other markets, with a much bigger battery and better range and all that.
The sheer options that are already available even in our market, if one were to move to a segment or two higher up.
The lingering ‘tingle’ after seeing and driving the Kia EV6 and Ioniq 5. (If they would release a scaled-down-in-size, Ioniq 5 while keeping all the features and range intact, and call it the Ioniq 3, then that would be the absolute perfect car in my books.)
The fact that whole EV segment from all accounts is about to heat up considerably with lots of nice options.
Saying all this, the discounted price at which they are offering a 2023 variant, is very tempting.
This is an interesting circumstance for any prospective buyer to be in at this moment.
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