Is the Hyundai IONIQ 5 still the smart EV buy?

The Hyundai IONIQ 5 starts at £40,695, offers up to 354 miles of range and still charges faster than most rivals. Five years after it first landed, here’s which version makes the most sense. There are plenty of electric cars that make more sense on a spreadsheet than they do in a showroom, but the Hyundai IONIQ 5 has never really been one of them. It still looks like a concept car that escaped from a motor show, it has a huge amount of space inside and it uses charging technology that was ahead of much of the market when it first arrived in 2021. The latest version starts at £40,695 in the UK, rising through Premium, N Line and Ultimate trims, with a choice of 63kWh and 84kWh batteries. The bigger one manages up to 354 miles on the official WLTP test in rear-wheel-drive form. That puts the IONIQ 5 in an interesting spot, more expensive than a mainstream EV but well short of BMW or Mercedes money, and Hyundai is betting that buyers will happily pay for clever engineering and space