Hyundai Ioniq 5 performs well in first road trip

One of the main reasons I switched from my 2020 Chevy Bolt, which started experiencing serious and anxiety provoking range meter issues in February 2025 that I had never before experienced in 5.5 years with that car, was because I did not trust it enough to take it on road trips anymore.

I wanted an EV with a reliable range meter that did not add phantom miles and shed those miles so quickly that they were gone before you could even analyze or assess your range situation.

So, I traded my cute, blue 2020 Bolt, which I really did enjoy — until the range meter issues and also an issue with the heat not working arose in February — in a couple of weeks ago for a 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5.

I put the Ioniq 5 to its first road trip test this week, driving from my home in Highline Crossing Cohousing in Littleton, Colo. to a mindfulness and meditation retreat at the Blazing Mountain Retreat Center in Crestone, Colo.

It’s about 200 miles in each direction, and up and down, up and down, and up and down, multiple mountain passes and many mountains.  The Hyundai Ioniq 5 did superbly on the trip. It accurately represented range estimates throughout the 200-mile trip to Crestone, a beautiful, tiny town nestled in a field of pinyon pines in the San Luis valley.

On the way to Crestone this past Wednesday, I charged at a ChargePoint+ fast-charging station in Salida. On the way back from Crestone to Littleton, with the Ioniq 5’s range meter showing 298 miles at the start of this return drive, I elected not to charge at all and I made it home to Littleton with 80 miles of range showing after 199 miles of driving.

Much of the driving was at 65 mph to 70 mph, and there was a strong crosswind/headwind for most of the way back to Littleton. I felt a bit anxious about a third of the way through the trip when I elected not to drive a few miles off of the main route to get to the Salida fast charging station I had plugged in to on the way to Crestone.

I need not have worried as the wind and the up-mountain driving, mostly on Colorado Route 285, which was eating up range fairly quickly, were offset by the regenerative braking miles added on down-the-mountain driving in the last two-thirds of the trip.

I feel quite confident in the Ioniq 5 now in terms of longer trips, and I plan to do some more road trips to different parts of Colorado soon — plus one to California to visit my dad and his wife in the Bay Area sometime around Thanksgiving.

It’s a good feeling to be able to trust your EV on longer trips, especially with lots of mountain driving + highway speed driving.

It’s too bad my Bolt — which I once drove 1,200 miles in each direction from Denver to Santa Barbara — stopped delivering the range confidence that it once did.

I’m not sure why this happened, although I suspect it was a software issue that two dealerships that I took my 2020 Bolt to — John Elway and Ed Bozarth — claimed, incorrectly in my view, was not a problem.

Next Ioniq 5 road trip, here I come 🙂.