One of the main reasons that many car buyers have been reluctant to buy all-electric vehicles is quite simple — traveling long distances in one is generally quite time consuming and inconvenient. This is mostly owing to the dearth of electric vehicle superfast-charging stations and the low range of many of the offerings out there now.
With that reality in mind, a recent video installment of The Straight Pipes explored the difference between doing a road-trip in a Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In Hybrid and doing one in a Hyundai Ioniq Electric.
The road-trip in question was a roundtrip run between Toronto and Ottawa, around 621 miles altogether — so not too long of a trip in a normal internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, but still enough to expose issues that arise from relying solely on an electric car (unless it’s one of Tesla’s, with access to its substantial superfast-charging network).
As a reminder here, the current model year of the Hyundai Ioniq Electric only possesses a single-charge range of around 124 miles. The upcoming model year of the offering is expected to improve this number substantially, though, and the goal is for a 250-mile offering by 2020.
Here’s the video:
Green Car Reports provides more: “Both presenters come to the conclusion the Ioniq Electric is the better car of the two, though the lack of Level 3 charging stations along the way makes for quite a bit of downtime during a pitstop.”
A Level 2 charger halfway through the journey is the only way the Ioniq Electric receives a replenished charge — at the cost of 3 hours charging time. Thankfully, it seems there are some pretty neat attractions along the way, but that depends on how much electric vehicle owners enjoy “The Big Apple” — that’s not a reference to New York City, either.”
While the upcoming range increase that will accompany the next model year of the Hyundai Ioniq Electric will no doubt help quite a lot, the reality with regard to road trips is that a large network of intelligently placed superfast-charging stations will be necessary if road trips are to become convenient in electric cars.
Related: 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid & Electric: CleanTechnica Review
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