Steering Wheel molting at 8 weeks……ughhhhh, Dealer, and Hyundai are both aware.

 

I used to wear a ring that marred the steering wheel like that.

 

I really like the IONIQ 9's threshold of time for being in traffic and the auto-drive staying on. In the IONIQ 6 it cuts off almost immediately once the vehicle comes to a stop.

 

we have now driven over 3,000 miles In our calligraphy performance. Here is our updated likes/dislikes:

Likes:

• styling - it’s a a head turner - we get oodles of positive comments on the looks
• charging speed - A+
• comfort/quiet - hands down better than our Teslas
• sensor array - hands down better than our Teslas
• size/storage - perfect size SUV for us for content and people hauling

Dislikes:

• steering - have to turn wheel way too much for a turn. Awful steering ratio.
• turning radius poor
• have to “turn car on and off” - why? Real nuisance and we are always leaving car on by accident
• no auto-lock on walk away
• poor self driving features - awful compared to simple autosteer with Tesla
• complex and confusing on screen feature navigation to change settings
• terrible physical buttons (way too small, too cluttered)
• Touchscreen size - you may not appreciate this unless you have driven a Tesla, but not having a decent vertical size to touchscreen results in a far poorer GPS navigation experience. With Hyundai, the best I get is what turn is next (and that’s from the text). Cannot see the road ahead, and this is especially palpable when there are slowdowns or stops. On a Tesla with a 17” touchscreen, you can see far down the road and anticipate issues way ahead of time as well as your route details - far more detailed map). With the Hyundai (and virtually every other EV) you don’t see a slowdown or stop or issue until you are on top of it.

Recognize that this is our (my wife’s and my) opinion. YMMV. Would be interested in your response, but also let us know if you have extensively driven Teslas so you have a fair experience in comparison with the ”competition”. (as an aside, I am not a Tesla fanboy - just have driven them over 12 years and 500,000+ miles - they have different advantages and different limitations).

Hyundai has made a good/very good EV with the IONIQ 9. Fixing/addressing the above would (for us) make it a great EV.

 

(sorry - driven 200k not 500k)

 

I agree with all the positives listed, but would add a few: 1. CarPlay. Allows me to choose which nav I use, better integration with apple media apps than Tesla. I found the Tesla nav to make consistently poor route choices and when searching for things often directed me to choices much farther out of the way. Now I can use google, waze or apple maps, as well as abrp for longer trips. 2. side cameras are displayed in front of me when I signal, as opposed to tesla displaying on screen to my right. 3. my son really loves the second row. He likes the screens, more control over his climate, the leg rest and the open space next to him. He also sits higher relative to the door height, so can see more. 4. I like the mix of digital and physical controls. It is much easier for my wife to adjust her seat ventilation with the button than on the touchscreen, I appreciate that I can see things like tire pressure, trip details, etc right in front of me instead of off to the right and can access with the scroll wheel without taking my eyes away to guide my fingers on touch screen. Dislikes: 1. Agree with on/off button stupidity, no lock on walk, touchscreen menu complexity. 2. I really dislike the climate control system. The biggest thing I miss from my model Y was that I could set the seat warmers, steering wheel and vents to 'auto', pick a temp and the computer would adjust to maintain that temperature, ideally using the more efficient methods. And I never had to reset anything. I have to reset the seat settings (and there is no auto) every time and the vent "auto" setting never seems to get the car to the actual desired temperature. I'm constantly having to manually dial down the vent fan because the cabin temp is fine and the vents are wasting electrons. 3. minorly annoyed at having to reset regen level every trip. I understand this is the law in South Korea, but wish the US version could set/forget. Some disagreements I disagree with: 1. I like the smaller touchscreen and that more of the information I need is in front of me rather than to the right. But I also recognize I'm in carplay 90% of the time and am used to navigating it from years prior to tesla. 2. steering/turn radius- totally acknowledge sloppier and wider than tesla, but not sure that's the right comparison. My wife owned a subaru ascent and I've driven multiple 3 row suvs in the last year. I think these are par for the course for most similar sized vehicles and the steering is not nearly as sloppy as the subaru. But I spent the first 15 years of my driving career in a 1971 super beetle, so may not be as bothered as others. Overall, this is the most quiet, comfortable, planted, stable at speed full size 3 row SUV I've driven. While I miss some of the software sophistication of the tesla, I'm overall pretty happy with the choice.

 

sorry, not sure how I lost the formatting while signing in.

 

So it looks like Hyundai is addressing at least two of my concerns, in 2026 in 2027 supposedly. They are introducing a new infotainment system, and at least by the picture shown, it seems to be a large touchscreen screen, maybe close to the 17 inch that Tesla offers. This will allow for a more vertical and robust view of the GPS map (and hopefullyhigher resolution). Additionally, they’re planning to enhance their self driving capabilities to level 2+. we will see… Here’s a link.

Hyundai's EVs are about to get smarter and more efficient with its new 'Pleos' brand

Hyundai is quickly evolving into much more than just a traditional automaker. After launching its new software brand and tech...

electrek.co

 

Yes the ccNC infotainment systems introduced with some 2025 models were always going to be an interim solution, with Pleos (Android Automotive OS based) the long term solution.

I am actually a little surprised they introduced the ccNC systems, they had already announced Pleos well before the ccNC system introduction.

The ccNC system is definitely a step up previous from the Gen5W system used in the previous EGMP cars, but I wonder how much long term updates it will get given Pleos is the future.

Hyundai is making a lot of investments in self driving and partnering on “Robotaxies” etc around the world. It will be interesting to see what their Level 2+ driving is like.

 

This is from 2020:

Hyundai Motor Group to launch NVIDIA DRIVE ‘connected car’ infotainment and AI platform | Hyundai News | Hyundai Australia

Explore Hyundai Australias latest news - unveiling the NVIDIA DRIVE, a connected car infotainment and AI platform by Hyundai Motor Group. Click here.

www.hyundai.com

• All new models from Hyundai Motor Group brands (Hyundai, Kia and Genesis) to feature
• NVIDIA DRIVE platform as standard, starting from 2022
• NVIDIA technology enhances new connected car operating system (ccOS)

Has this actually happened? Is ccOS the same as ccNC ?

 

some key functions are shared instead of staying with the profile, eg the highway driver assistance 2 (the equivalent of Tesla autosteer). If it’s turned on it applies to BOTH PROFILES - WTH? my wife is scared to death of it, I want it.

I don't follow. HDA is there no matter the profile setting. Also, it's only activated IF you turn it on. Car will not turn HDA by itself randomly lol.

 

HDA can be activated as a function within settings, so that when you press cruise control it will keep you in lane as well (aka autosteer in Tesla parlance). But it crosses profiles, so if it’s on, it’s on for both drivers. My wife hates it, I thought I loved it. But it doesn’t really matter, because it’s so rudimentary I find it to be actually quite dangerous. Light years behind Tesla

 

I drove from London to Switzerland and back last year in my 2021 IONIQ 5 (not IONIQ 9). This year I repeated the same journey in my 2025 IONIQ 5. It's about 1,500 miles round trip. I drove most of it on French Autoroutes, with HDA2 activated.

The HDA2 system works absolutely fine. I can't fathom why some refer to it as 'dangerous'. OK, so it's not very clever, granted: it steers the car and maintains a set speed, while keeping a safe distance from the car ahead. But what more do you need on a very long highway drive?

The two differences that I did notice, however, between the old car and the new one, is that the new car no longer constantly reminds me to keep my hands on the steering wheel, which is great, and that on the new car the automatic lane change - by flicking the indicator stalk - finally works, and works well (though, if we're honest, it's a bit of a gimmick).

 

my eyes are always on the road, and my hands are always on the wheel.

Tesla - FSD - reliably stays in lane.
Hyundai Ioniq 9 - HDA2 - wanders into adjacent lane, or off road, without warning.
Yes, apples and oranges.

when we bought the vehicle, Hyundai claimed that there was Highway Driving Assist 2 (HDA2) which would keep the car in the lane. It does - sometimes. Sometimes isn’t safe.

 

People were killed by Tesla FSD - it's nowhere reliable to be used as FSD. HDA or HDA2 is a simple tool that takes 90% work on highway long stretches and lets you relax and keep hands on steering to correct that 10% when it's trying to wander off. Tesla is a horrible car - meaning as a car it fails big time on almost everything. Hyundai Ioniq is night and day difference and miles ahead as a car.

 

When using HDA(2) you are still driving and should be paying attention, it is assisting (and why its called HDA).

Driving our Ioniq 5 and 6 including 800 miles road trips up and down US West Coast freeways we (three different family members) all find it very relaxing. It sounds like people have different expectations but it seems to be doing what it is supposed to for us.

I agree turning off requires more button pushes than should be needed.

 

I have a billion likes, but I'm happy about two in particular because they were two things that I thought that the Hyundai wouldn't be able to do effectively. First is plug and charge. I've used it at a few Tesla chargers and it's worked flawlessly. Second is the trip planning. It's now able to plan for charging stops and all that, and allows you to make adjustments (i.e. filter out lower power chargers) as well.

In terms of dislikes, there's three of them and hopefully they can be fixed with software updates. First off, we need regen settings to stick to user profiles. There's no good reason why we can't start with a preferred setting like we do with almost everything else in the car. Second, I'm not a fan of the lane keep assist. It feels like it is too sensitive. It constantly feels like it is correcting me. I may need to either adjust it or turn it off. Third would probably be the digital key sensitivity. For some reason, I can walk up to the passenger side with my phone in my pocket and it'll work pretty easily. But, on the driver's side I have to put the phone right up to the handle and wait a few seconds for it to finally register.

 

There's no good reason why we can't start with a preferred setting like we do with almost everything else in the car.

So to my understanding, it’s a safety issue regulation. Regen above 1 can cause sudden loss of traction in slippery conditions, especially on snowy or icy roads. Hence it’s made to always default to 0 at the start. You can imagine amount of lawsuits HK group will get from every 88yo granny who will forget to put her fancy Ioniq 9 Calligraphy into snow mode (that btw limits regen to 0 or 1 for exact same reason). Oh we are talking about billions in lawsuits and massive recall. So Hyundai said nope. Not doing that.

 

Teslas are set to fairly significant regeneration AND complete stop, so I don’t think it’s a regulatory issue. Plus the Hyundai seems to remember regeneration levels 1, 2,and 3. It just won’t allow you to preset regeneration level 4 which is also called I-pedal.

but the problem isn’t just level of regeneration – if you don’t have it set to I-pedal then it won’t come to a complete stop.

 

Agreed it defaults to what it was last set to (except I-Pedal). At least in our 2023 Ioniq 5 and 2026 Ioniq 6.

However the car still uses regen even in level 0 (with one exception "brake cleaning mode" - see below).

The car almost never uses the friction brake (which is why there is a brake cleaning mode). The various regen levels 0 - 3 (and including I-Pedal) are just different software mappings of how the car responds to the accelerator and brake pedal input. Try pushing the brake pedal in level 0 and you will see the power train usage goes negative.

From the user manual (2023 Ioniq 5 in this case but it should be same in all of them).

Selecting 0 step of the regenerative braking system, the brake disc cleaning function is operated around 10 times. While operating to clean the brake disc, the driving distance and the regenerative braking performance can be reduced. After finishing, the regenerative braking performance will be restored.

Written in the usual not entirely clear language of the manual, but generally interpreted to mean when you first select Level 0 regen the first 10 times you use the brakes it will use the friction bake (and therefore clean the brake) and then after that it will return to using regen.

It is recommended to do this occasionally, although I have to say I rarely do......

 

0 is no regen. 1, 2, and 3 are increasing levels of regen. Ipedal is the highest level of regen (technically the level above level 3 so in essence level 4) and is the only level that will bring the car to a complete stop.

It doesn’t default to 3, it defaults to whatever the previous setting is that you had, except if you previously set it to Ipedal it reverts to level 3 which is the annoying part.

 

Agreed. I set 1-pedal while I am logged in under my profile but will not remember that setting.....grrrr. Why can't I remote climate start from the desktop application but only the phone app. I can't have my phone where I work so I have to wait until I get out of restricted area to climate start my car even though it appears most of the other functions are available from the desktop app.

 

FYI it is illegal in Korea to default to max regen. I suspect that is why the i9 cannot default to max. I also find the discussion about regen causing slippage on snow interesting. I find it very helpful when descending steep snow/ice covered roads, much more than trying to feather brakes. Will see what happens this winter, but have used it for years with Tesla without issue. Makes sense on flat ground to reduce regen, but maybe not when descending?