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| The 2018 Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid. |
Last year, the big news from Hyundai was the introduction of its Prius-fighter Ioniq Hybrid. Now, for 2018, there's a plug-in version---and we like it better than the original.
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| 2018 Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid. |
We liked the '17 Ioniq just fine, apart from being unable to get close to the EPA fuel economy estimate in our tester. But we had no such problems with the Plug-In Hybrid.
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| 2018 Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid. |
The 2018 Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid delivers 29 miles of pure electric range before the gas/electric hybrid system takes over. My commute is 25 miles each way, so 29 out of every 50 mile daily roundtrip was done without using a drop of gas. That allowed me to finish the week, which involved about 300 miles of driving, with an average fuel economy of 62.5 miles per gallon. Nice stuff.
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| 2018 Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid interior. |
Also nice is the fit, finish and level of equipment in our tester. The Ioniq Plug-In starts at $24,950, but our tester was the Limited, which adds blind spot detection with rear cross-traffic alert and leather seating surfaces to the standard equipment of the base model, no slouch itself with proximity key, pushbutton start and a seven-inch color touchscreen with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and a backup camera. Base price for the Limited is $28,300.
Our tester also had the Ultimate Package ($3,750), which adds a power tilt-and-slide sunroof, automatic emergency braking, smart cruise control, lane keep assist, headlights with dynamic bending light function, rear parking sensors, navigation (which then upgrades the audio screen to eight inches), an upgraded eight-speaker Infinity premium audio system with
Clari-Fi Music Restoration technology , Qi wireless device charging and carpeted floormats.
Bottom line is $32,050---which for the level of equipment---is more than competitive with the Toyota Prius Prime. The Prime cost $4,031 more. It does beat the Ioniq in MPGe figures, but four grand is four grand...and the Ioniq is a much nicer car to look at than the current-generation Prius.
