I snagged a 2025 Ioniq 5 to replace my 2021 Chevy Bolt yesterday and already put 150 miles on it. I’m kind of blown away and wanted to share some things that stood out.
- The car is wide. Much wider than the Bolt. Gonna take some getting used to.
- Not sure how I lived without a power lift gate until now. It was great when loading laundry and groceries into the trunk.
- The driver seat can lay completely flat - flatter than the zero gravity mode that you may have seen. Perfect for napping while waiting at the laundromat, and I’m looking forward to trying it while car camping.
- You can pull the car forward and backwards with the keyfob while standing outside of it. Already used it twice - once to pull out of a tight parking spot, once to center myself after street parking a bit crooked.
- The surround view is incredible. It made parallel parking an absolute breeze.
- Autopilot is scary but works. I was only brave enough to use it on the highway with no other cars around.
- Auto-parking doesn’t seem to work very well, but I’ll have to play around with it.
Overall I’m super happy with the car and keep looking for excuses to go somewhere. Happy to answer any questions.
… You have an eye tracker in your car wtf?
Why?
It’s to keep you from falling asleep/getting distracted my a phone/etc. It came with the trim, which was annoying AF. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to remove. Basically just an IR cam and a IR floodlight attached to a logic daughter board. Pop the unit out, and put the cladding back.
I removed it because it kept beeping loudly that it couldn’t see my eyes, causing me to nearly crash. It gets fooled by sunglasses, the things you use in summer for the sun, and winter for snow blindness/glare.
Yeah, hell’s no.
That’s one of those anti patterns that will actually distract me and cause a crash