2026 Hyundai IONIQ 5 Reviews, Pricing & Specs

Combine a 1980s hatchback with a hint of modern crossover SUV and you have the Ioniq 5. That combination shouldn’t work but it does. The profile is pure hatchback, though larger than the Volkswagen GTIs and Toyota Corollas we’re used to. It sports angular lines, highlighted by a character line that rises straight from the rear wheels to the front of the doors where it meets the shoulder line. Together, they create a triangular shape that defines much of the profile. Dark cladding around the wheels and lower body adds to the crossover flavor.

Up front, a visor slit houses rectangular headlights, and a small grille opens in a darkened fascia that droops into a frown. The rear has an integrated spoiler, a darkened top panel that houses rectangular taillights, and a dark lower fascia to play off the front end. The end result is an attractive crossover that comes off more like a car. The hatchback design also makes it look smaller than it is—wheel sizes range from 18 to 20 inches.

The XRT model gets a unique set of 18-inch alloys that look like steel wheels. It leans into the dark trim, adding pixel-patterned exterior cladding on the fenders and nose. The nose and tail are almost fully darkened, and have unique fascias with better approach and departure angles. The XRT also gets black window trim and side sills, black mirror caps, and black badges. It sits slightly higher, and the result of the changes is a more purposeful look—sort of like a rally car.

Inside, the Ioniq 5 is more utilitarian than upscale, but with a healthy dose of technology. The base model has standard cloth upholstery, while all other trims get synthetic leather, so there is no soft genuine leather. Only black and gray upholstery are available, creating a rather cold theme. The tech includes a pair of 12.3-inch screens side by side, as well as some touch controls for the climate system below. The overall look is rather sterile, which isn't unusual for a modern EV.

Hyundai offers the Ioniq 5 with a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive (RWD) powertrain that makes 168 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque in the base SE Standard Range trim or 220 hp and the same 258 lb-ft in other trims. Buyers can also pick a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive (AWD) powertrain that ups output to 320 hp and 446 lb-ft. The Ioniq 5 N performance model has its own dual-motor powertrain, good for up to 641 hp and 568 lb-ft of torque.

We drove the Limited and XRT trims around Hyundai’s new Metaplant near Savannah, Georgia, both with the dual-motor powertrain. The motors provide quiet, easy power that's especially robust from a stop. The Sport mode makes the throttle livelier and passing easier, and the estimated 5.3-second 0-60 mph time means the Ioniq 5 is quicker than any gas-powered crossover short of the turbocharged six-cylinder or V8 engines of the luxury segment.

Using the steering wheel paddles, drivers can choose from five settings of regenerative braking, which range from freewheeling in the 0 setting to one-pedal driving that creates a lot of drag when drivers back off the throttle in the i-Pedal Max setting. Freewheeling is less intrusive on a freeway and the Max setting works well for city or neighborhood driving.

The Ioniq 5 rides smoothly in its Limited trim, even with a set of the largest 255/45R20 tires, although the available smaller wheels and tires will make the ride even smoother. Like many EVs, the steering is direct but rather numb, and the handling is pleasant but not overly agile. There is some lean in corners, and the 4,700 pounds or so of curb weight means it can push rather than rotate if driven hard into a corner.

The Ioniq 5 XRT offers a very different driving experience that works well on road and off. It sits an inch higher off the ground for a total of seven inches of ground clearance that works with unique front and rear fascias to improve approach and departure angles. It rides on a set of 235/60R18 Continental CrossContact all-terrain tires with tall sidewalls for a softer ride, and has front tow hooks. It also has three terrain modes—Mud, Sand, and Snow—that adjust the traction control and throttle mapping to work best with each type of terrain, while locking in a 50/50 front/rear torque split for traction at all four corners.

On a loose, silty off-road trail, the Sand mode kept the tires clawing through dirt and the throttle on high alert to easily power out of corners, while the stability control allowed the XRT to slide and the tail to kick out without undue intervention. While we didn’t use Mud mode, it would have allowed even more wheelspin and sideways action, though we never felt like the traction control was holding anything back.

The off-road track was flat, so the XRT didn’t have to deal with steep angles, deep ruts, or jumps that could unload the suspension and lead to sharp impacts. The Ioniq 5 is halfway to a rally car, but it’s not fully there because it lacks underbody skid plates or any type of high-performance shocks to handle hard suspension impacts. The Ford Mustang Mach-E Rally offers more robust equipment for the rally enthusiast.

The Ioniq 5 has spacious front seats. An eight-way power-adjustable driver’s seat is standard, and the same goes for the front passenger seat in all but the base trim, which gets six-way manual adjustments. The front seats are heated in every Ioniq 5 and the Limited trim adds ventilated front seats, driver’s seat memory, and a “Relaxation” seat for the driver that reclines to an extreme angle and has a power footrest so the driver can stretch out when the car is charging.

The rear seat is also spacious, thanks to a generous 39.4 inches of legroom. Two adults can fit back there easily and a third will be cramped for shoulder room but they won’t have to deal with a driveshaft hump, because there isn’t one. The Limited trim gets heated outboard rear seats, too.

Cargo space is slightly smaller than the average compact crossover's. With the rear seats up, the Ioniq 5 has 26.3 cubic feet of cargo space. Fold the second row down and that expands to 58.5 cubic feet. That’s aided ever so slightly by the 0.85-cubic-foot front trunk. Maximum cargo space is about 10–12 cubic feet less than that of gas-powered compact crossovers such as the Honda CR-V and the Toyota RAV4, though just 1.2 cubic feet less than the Mustang Mach-E, and the steep angle of the rear hatch also saps some of the cargo usability.

The Ioniq 5’s technology is up to date and easy to use. It starts with a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and a 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen under a single piece of glass. Also standard are wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, along with built-in navigation. All but the base trim get a wireless smartphone charger, and the top Limited trim adds a head-up display. The base audio system has six speakers, but a Bose eight-speaker unit is standard on the XRT and Limited trims.

The Ioniq 5 also comes standard with a Wi-Fi hotspot and the MyHyundai smartphone app. The app lets owners precondition the car, monitor the state of charge, unlock the doors remotely, set charging schedules, check the battery level, and use connected navigation with real-time traffic information. Hyundai Pay also connects to charging stations to let buyers pay through the app. The XRT and the Limited offer a digital key, too.

The infotainment screen is well within the driver's reach, and features a simple command structure that makes functions easy to find and set. Voice commands can also be used to control numerous functions. The climate functions are largely controlled by touch in a separate group of controls below the center screen, and we like that they’re separate.

The 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 5 comes standard with a healthy list of safety features and offers even more as options. Standard fare includes blind-spot monitors, front and rear parking sensors, rear cross-traffic alert, forward-collision warning with pedestrian and cyclist detection and intersection assist, automatic emergency braking, lane-keep assist, a driver-attention monitor, safe-exit assist, adaptive cruise control, high-beam assist, rear-occupant alert, and Hyundai's Highway Driving Assist 1 that can handle the controls on select stretches of highway, though the driver’s hands have to stay on the wheel.

Options (or standard on higher-end models) include steering support for the blind-spot monitor, a surround-view camera system, blind-spot cameras, side parking sensors, brake support for the parking sensors, evasive steering assist for the forward collision warning system, and Highway Driving Assist 2 that adds automatic lane changes to Highway Driving Assist 1.

The Ioniq 5 has great but limited crash-test results. It earned Top Safety Pick+ from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), but no crash-test ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) were available at the time of writing.

The lane-keep assist doesn’t allow the Ioniq 5 to ping pong from lane marker to lane marker, and the blind-spot camera system is an especially useful feature that more automakers should adopt.

Hyundai offers the 2026 Ioniq 5 in SE Standard Range, SE, SEL, Limited, off-road-oriented XRT, and high-performance N trim levels. The SE Standard Range starts at $36,600 including a $1,600 destination fee. The SE costs $39,100, the SEL $41,400, the Limited $46,675, the XRT $47,875, and the Ioniq 5 N $68,800.

The price leader is also the efficiency leader, but with a catch. The SE Standard Range model is EPA-rated at 131 MPGe city, 100 MPGe highway, and 115 MPGe combined, but has a smaller 63-kilowatt-hour battery pack with just 245 miles of range. The other RWD models are rated as high as 129/100/114 MPGe—just a little below the single-motor model—and they get the larger 84-kWh battery that tops out at 318 miles of range. Adding a second motor costs $3,900 and brings more power and more traction.

We prefer the additional power of the second motor, even though it drops the range to 290 miles with the standard 19-inch wheels and 268 miles with the 20s. The XRT’s taller ride height and all-terrain tires blunt the range further to 259 miles. We averaged 3.3 miles per kWh in the Limited model we drove, which was actually higher than the 2.94 mi/kWh EPA rating.

An 800-volt electrical architecture allows the Ioniq 5 to charge from 10%–80% in 20 minutes with a Combined Charging System (CCS) adapter at a rate of up to 250 kW. The vehicle has a standard NACS adapter that lets it charge on Tesla Superchargers. However, those chargers top out at 150 kW, which increases the charge time with the larger battery to 30 minutes. An 11-kW onboard charger lets the Ioniq 5 charge from 10%–100% in seven hours and 20 minutes on a Level 2 home charger. The high-voltage electrical architecture is quite advanced, and gives the Ioniq 5 a charging speed advantage over several rivals, even over more aspirational models from Mercedes-Benz.

We’d give up the 28 miles of range and pay the $3,900 for additional power and AWD of the dual-motor powertrain. We’d also be tempted by the XRT trim for the fun we could have off-road. From there, we recommend weighing the additional cost versus the features by trim level. No matter which Ioniq 5 shoppers pick, they'll get one of the best EVs available, even though it’s five years into its run.