IONITY Test Proves Hyundai Ioniq 5's Superb Charging Capabilities

The first fast charging tests of the brand new Hyundai Ioniq 5 emerges in Europe, which allows us to one more time analyze the results, and compare it with the original manufacturer's demo from South Korea.

In this post, we will take a look at Battery Life's test of Hyundai Ioniq 5 with a 72.6 kWh battery, at an IONITY fast-charging station, conducted from 6 to 100% State of Charge (SOC).

Charging power vs state-of-charge (SOC)

As we can see, the charging curve is very specific to the Hyundai Ioniq 5. The shape is similar to what we saw before, with some strange dips in the middle of the session.

It's difficult to explain whether the battery is oversensitive to some temperature measures inside the pack and limits the power for a bit, or it's an initial software issue that will be polished at a later point. Overall, we don't find a need to reduce the power rapidly just to increase it again a while later.

The peak charging power is 224 kW, although you can see that for a very short while it's 225 kW, but it's a tiny share of a particular SOC point (47%) that we use 224 kW as the ultimate value.

State-of-charge (SOC) vs time

Charging from 20% to 80% SOC took a little bit over 15 minutes. See the time chart at 4:22 in the video.

The addition of 200 km (124 miles) of range requires about 10 minutes, when starting at 10 or 20% SOC.

Hyundai reports that 10-80% SOC is possible in 18 minutes at 350 kW charger (800V).

Average charging power vs state-of-charge (SOC)

The average power in the very important range from 20% to 80% SOC is 170 kW, which is 76% of the peak value.

The averages are slightly different than in the previous Hyundai Ioniq 5's analysis, as the charging sessions start at a significantly different point (more on that later).

C-rate vs state-of-charge (SOC)

The peak C-rate* - charging power in relation to the total battery capacity of 77 kWh (our guess) - is about 2.9C.

The average C-rate when charging from 20% to 80% SOC is 2.2C.

*C-rate tells us how the charging power relates to the battery pack capacity. For example: 1C is 1-hour charging power (current), when the power value in kW is equal to the battery pack capacity in kWh. 2C would be enough to recharge in half an hour.

The net battery capacity of 72.6 kWh stands for about 94% of the total battery capacity.

Range replenishing speed vs state-of-charge (SOC)

The rate of range replenishing depends on the energy consumption and the energy consumption depends on the use case.

In the case of Hyundai Ioniq 5 we will assume the WLTP range:

• WLTP
  Taking into consideration the WLTP range of 480 km (298 miles) and available battery capacity of 72.6 kWh, we can assume energy consumption of 151 Wh/km (243 Wh/mile).
  The effective average speed of range replenishing when charging from 20% to 80% SOC would be then 18.8 km/minute (11.7 miles/minute).

The real-world result, just like in the manufacturer's demo, is very high at a peak of almost 25 km/minute (15.5 miles/minute) and an average of nearly 19 km/minute (12 miles/minute). The average is state-of-the-art and we never saw anything higher.

It could be even better if Hyundai would manage to smooth the dips in the middle part.

Comparisons with other EVs

Now, let's compare the Hyundai Ioniq 5 test results at IONITY with Hyundai's demo from South Korea.

Comparison of charging power

Comparison of the charging curves reveals to us a shift in the charging curve that happens when we change the starting point (of course there might be also other factors involved, including the initial battery temperature).

The new test is from 6% SOC, while the previous was at 10%. You can see an almost perfect shift of the charging curve up to over 50%.

We can assume that once the battery management system detects the maximum allowed temperature, it throttles the power.

A quick look at the power output:

Comparison of C-rate

The C-rates in both tests were basically the same.

Most of the differences are related to power shift, and some with the uncertainty of measure/calculations.

Comparison of range replenishing speed

One more look at the range replenishing speed:

The averages for 20-80% SOC window are slightly different, but it's just the power shift, related to starting the session earlier. At 10-70% SOC, the average power is 178 kW, very close to 180 kW in the demo.

Conclusions

An independent test confirms the outstanding fast charging capabilities of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 with the 72.6/77 kWh (net/total) battery.

The average power and range replenishing rates are state of the art, although the shape of charging curve might be a little bit weird (at least for now).

As the new test reveals a shift in the curve when starting at a lower SOC, there is no need to worry that we will not get full performance when starting at 10% SOC, compared to 20% SOC.

See also

Analysis: Fast Charging Of The New Fiat 500 Electric

Porsche Taycan (93 kWh Battery) Fast Charging Analysis: Very Good

General info:

* Some values on the charts are estimated from the data source.

** Temperature of the battery cells might highly negatively affect charging capabilities. We don't have data about temperatures of the battery at the beginning and during the charging process. In cold or hot weather, as well as after driving very dynamically, charging power might be significantly lower than shown on the charts (in extreme cases charging might be impossible until the battery temperature will not return to an acceptable level).