Now that the Hyundai Ioniq had arrived, the Toyota Prius finally has a rival in the green vehicle segment. The Prius has dominated the hybrid vehicle market since 2004. The Ioniq is a hatchback that’s available as a gas/electric hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or fully electric vehicle. It has a very Prius-like silhouette, and the Hyundai Ioniq could have been the car to knock Toyota off its pedestal if it wasn’t for one thing. 

What’s great about the new Hyundai Ioniq

The No. 1 thing people love about the Hyundai Ioniq is the fuel economy. According to Hyundai, the Ioniq beat the Prius, with its BLUE trim getting up to 59 miles per gallon on the highway.  The 2020 Ioniq is a compact vehicle with seating for 5 and front-wheel drive. It has the most interior room in its class and plenty of available options like ambient lighting, a touchscreen display, and a flat-bottom steering wheel.

The 2020 Ionic keeps you connected and safe with a full suite of technical and safety features. It has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, so every aspect of your world, from contacts to text messages, is right at your fingertips. Hyundai’s “Blue Link” car service lets you start the car remotely, flash the horn and lights from a distance, and lock the car remotely – all from your smartphone. Safety features include forward collision avoidance assist with pedestrian detection, lane following assist, blind-spot collision avoidance assist, driver attention warning, and smart cruise control with a start-stop feature.

Like all Hyundai models, the Ioniq comes with a basic 5-year/60,000-mile warranty, a 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty, and a 7-year/unlimited miles rust-through warranty. The 2020 Hyundai Ioniq improves its driving range over the 2019 model from 124 miles to 170 miles. Since this is an electric vehicle, they also throw in a warranty on the high-capacity lithium-ion polymer battery system, covering that for 10 years or 100,000 miles.

The big concern with the Hyundai Ioniq

With all the Hyundai Ioniq has going for it, it might be easy to overlook a few flaws. That is, unless, one of those flaws is stopping power. According to Consumer Reports, the new hybrid has the worst braking performance it has seen in years. When they took it for a road test, they found that when braking from 60 miles per hour on dry surfaces, the Ioniq took 135 feet to come to a complete stop. It took 149 feet on wet surfaces. Despite this, they gave the Ioniq four out of five points in the braking category. 

The 2020 Hyundai Ioniq scored even lower in a few other categories. It received just a three out of five in acceleration, emergency handling, headlights, driving position, front-seat comfort, rear-seat comfort, rear access, interior fit and finish, and cargo area. It isn’t all bad news for the Ioniq, though. The reported highs included amazing fuel economy, advanced standard safety equipment, hatchback versatility, and available all-wheel drive.

The overall package of the Hyundai Ioniq

The Ioniq’s overall Consumer Reports score of 69 is good but not great. This result is the combined scores from the road test, which they score 67 out of 100, the predicted reliability which was four out of five, and the predicted owner satisfaction which was also four out of five. Compare that to the Prius, which scored a total of 79, getting 75 out of 100 on the road test and five out of five in the other categories. 

Do the 2020 Hyundai Ioniq’s fuel economy and stylish features outweigh the sub-par braking? Only time will tell, and hopefully, Hyundai will take note of this flaw and correct it in future models.