You Said Living Like This With the Hyundai Ioniq 5 Wouldn’t Be Easy. You Were Wrong

My time isn't what it used to be. The last few months of living with an electric vehicle have, as expected, forced lifestyle adaptations from when I would simply zip through a gas station to refuel a combustion car. Now I have the 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5, and without the ability to charge at my apartment, I go about things differently.

Before I got assigned this awesome electric crossover, I reviewed scores of letters from MotorTrend readers containing comments like this: "We don't have the charging infrastructure to deal with folks who can't pay to install a charging system in their home (or who live in apartments or condos or park on the street)." Are they right? Well, it hasn't been perfect, but so far it's entirely doable. More important, the process has revealed something unexpected: Charging the Ioniq 5's battery can actually free me to do the things I need and want to do.

By this point I've found a groove charging locally using the stations described in my arrival story. But for the sake of my experiment in exclusively using public charging, I've ceased plugging in where it's most convenient: the Level 2 charger at MotorTrend headquarters, where I spend a good chunk of my life. Like most public chargers it's first-come, first-served among our EV-driving staff, but not everyone can use it, so it's not truly public.

No big deal. Instead, I'll park at either of the EVGo Level 3 DC fast chargers about a block away. Their 50-kW maximum output isn't particularly quick, and EVGo limits its charge sessions to one hour, so I often have to stack two sessions to get the Ioniq 5's charge where it needs to be. Needing to walk back and forth can be irksome, but I don't mind a little leg stretch. Even better, it's a stroll I'd likely make regardless, given one of those chargers is at a shopping plaza where I get lunch—so it's a timesaving two-for-one.

Every EV hater relishes a charging horror story, so I'll relay the tale of my favorite fast charger betraying me. It's a 350-kW EVGo in downtown Santa Monica, that rate being far higher than the Ioniq 5's 239-kW maximum intake. With how fast this station is, making the short drive from my apartment to hit it is worthwhile. I typically use the time plugged in to stock up at the Trader Joe's a block away.

But one evening, I arrived with the battery at 19 percent and waited for the charger to get to work. It did—at a piddling 25 kW. Chargers have a ramp-up period, but after holding there for about five minutes I concluded something was amiss. Given only one other of the station's six stalls was occupied at the time, it's not like power was being rationed. With nothing better to do, I wandered aimlessly around downtown. If only I hadn't gotten groceries earlier in the week. On return 51 minutes later, the Ioniq 5's battery showed 47 percent—better, but not ideal.

But there's more to this story. A few days prior, an EVGo email had landed in my inbox, alerting me of unspecified updates to that station scheduled for the future. When was the last time a gas station reached out to let you know a pump was down? Anyway, perhaps I was naive in not considering those updates might relate to making it work reliably again. But they did: When I returned a few weeks later, it charged the Ioniq 5 at a blazing peak of 234 kW, getting the battery from 8 to 90 percent in 28 minutes. (Side note: EVgo Autocharge+ works perfectly.)

Every side of the EV industry is focused on fast charging, and making it faster. It should be—on a road trip or otherwise needing to minimize downtime, it's crucial to plug in somewhere that can charge as rapidly as the Ioniq 5 allows. But the odd thing about fast chargers is that they can inflict wasted time. A roughly half-hour session adding 200-plus miles of range is impressive, but that's a period I need to stay in or near the Ioniq 5, lest I incur idle fees or the ire of another EV driver. But it's also not necessarily enough time to get anything meaningful done.

In certain situations, so-called "slow" Level 2 chargers provide more flexibility, as I've found with the Flo network's 7-kW charger, located two blocks from my apartment. I must retract my earlier cruel descriptors of it: "too slow to be worthwhile" and a "worst case scenario." It's proven to be neither.

Driving home late one evening, I found myself on the brink: With the Ioniq 5's battery at just 4 percent, I'd left barely enough to reach a fast charger the next day—if it would be enough at all. But that neighborhood plug sat unoccupied, so I decided to see what it could do for me overnight. Turns out, a lot. Getting to 80 percent took nearly 10 hours, but it was all time I spent asleep and getting work done at home the next morning. That is, exactly what I'd do regardless.

Another useful instance occurred on a Saturday afternoon, when there was nothing on my schedule but chores and a bike ride. With the Ioniq 5's battery at 45 percent I didn't strictly need to charge, but with the Flo charger free, I figured I might as well. My activities took slightly more than 5 hours, enough time for the battery to reach 90 percent.

Obviously, the total length of these sessions would've been like filling a gas tank with an eye dropper. But the time I actually spent involved in the process—driving over, plugging in, walking home, then walking back to unplug—didn't take much longer than a typical fuel stop. Here's hoping the industry doesn't forsake relatively accessible, inexpensive, and easy-to-build Level 2 chargers. More of those around would ease things for apartment dwellers and other street parkers.

You don't live my life, and I don't live yours. I'm not here to say that since things are working out for me, they will for you, too. My point is that living with an EV absent home charging, at least in a place like Los Angeles, hasn't been difficult and instead has presented new benefits.

Sure, having a plug in the driveway would be nice, but the notion that charger-less renters cannot live with an EV is demonstrably false—and this long-term review is hardly halfway through. I've found the adaptations worthwhile, and if you choose an EV as great as the Hyundai Ioniq 5, they'll be even more so.