As members of the DigitalRosh community, we have long believed th at the futu re of vehicles is in the electric vehicle. As a result, we were sent on our own behalf (Efi Geisler and Ido Yavnai) to conduct a comparative trip between the two best trams in Israel, at least in our opinion, in a price range of about NIS 200 and a bit – Tesla Model 3 and Hyundai Ioniq 5. We wanted to experience how these two trams cope with the local Israeli asphalt jungle, our insights from the aforementioned experiment are detailed below.
Tried, traveled and survived to tell: Effie Geisler
Tesla – the vanguard of the electric vehicle
Everything started with Tesla… Tesla is the car that started the electric revolution, these basic shares will always be reserved for it. If until the middle of the previous decade an electric vehicle was mainly a political statement of “tree huggers”, a compromise that had to be made between a useful vehicle and “protecting the planet”, no longer… A group of engineers and car designers, the most prominent of which were Peter Rawlinson who came from Lotus, Henrik Fisker from BMW, Franz von Holzhausen from Volkswagen. And one eccentric billionaire from PayPal, Elon Musk by name, made history, showing the world starting in 2012 that an electric vehicle is not only uncompromising, it can be more powerful, reliable and more desirable than an internal combustion vehicle.
The Tesla Model 3 that was waiting for us at the Alden rental lot in Gilolit was the base model in a beautiful silver shade (I also got to test drive a Tesla in the US a few years ago). As I entered it, I immediately noticed that Tesla is in its own category and it is unlike any other vehicle. The passenger compartment is very minimalist and inside you are greeted by a 15-inch central screen, a gear lever on the right side of the steering wheel and another lever on the left side that is used for signaling, the wipers and switching between high and low beam. Thats it…. All other vehicle operation is done from the central screen. In a Tesla you have to start getting used to a different logic in operating the vehicle than in other vehicles. For example, to turn on the lights you have to start digging through the menus on the central screen, not exactly the recommended way to maintain concentration while driving. But a brief inquiry into the matter reveals that there is no reason for you to do this in a normal way, since the vehicle has lighting sensors, and it will turn the lights on and off by itself. The same logic applies to the wipers, a moisture sensor should turn them on automatically when it rains. Despite all this, I must say that in my opinion Tesla went a little too far with the decision to operate all vehicle systems from one central touch screen. For the sake of full disclosure, after I accumulated some mileage in the Tesla and switched to the Ionic 5, suddenly the driver’s environment seemed very busy.
From here I will move on to the two features that impressed me the most in Tesla, especially when it comes to driving on the busy and wild roads of our country. The first is its road control system. While driving, you are shown a comprehensive picture of the road around you on the central screen, the system knows how to differentiate and display in real time, cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles, pedestrians, traffic lights and traffic lights. I don’t know of any other car manufacturer that allows you this level of environmental control as of today.
The second impressive feature is of course the dynamic capability. Buying a Tesla in Israel is not cheap, in fact Israel is probably the most expensive place in the world to buy a Tesla. But even so, the acceleration ability of the Tesla is comparable to that of much more expensive cars that are sold here. The fact that its battery is along the chassis results in a low center of gravity and very impressive stability.
The fact that its battery is along the chassis results in a low center of gravity and very impressive stability. It is a world leader in the field of batteries. Her vehicles have OTA (Over the Air Updates) capability which allows her to perform remote repairs and upgrades to her vehicles. And she is very busy showing how far the envelope can be pushed.
But the avant-garde is not suitable for everyone, there is a large public that is less interested in what is the newest and coolest, but in what is reliable, proven and useful. For example, I don’t really understand the need to integrate the Boombox function in the car, which turns the Tesla into a kind of huge portable speaker (at the risk of revealing which boomer, part popper I am…). And here one should hope that Tesla does not fall into the “marketing abyss” . As for me, I was quite s keptical of an electric vehicle as an alternative to internal combustion vehicles, until the launch of the Model S about a decade ago. Tesla made me believe, and as we know, where the penitent stand, complete righteous people do not stand either.
Ionic 5 – the child of the revolution
Hyundai Ioniq 5 is one of the children of the revolution. It was launched in 2019 after Tesla had already revolutionized the industry
the vehicle according to her The old car manufacturers have already realized that an electric vehicle can no longer be an evolution of the combustion vehicles
the internal But it must be planned and rebuilt from the ground up. Therefore, similar to Volkswagen, which developed a completely new platform called MEB on which all the electric vehicles produced by the concern are built, or Mercedes with the EVA platform, Hyundai also developed a completely new platform for its vehicles called E-GMP on which the Ionik 5 was built.
The Ionic 5 is a very different vehicle from the Tesla Model 3, it doesn’t have the neck-twisting accelerations of the Tesla or, alternatively, its amusing (or puzzling, each according to their point of view) features such as the fart pillow, or the possibility of turning the vehicle into a singing light organ (in the parking lot … in the parking lot… don’t worry) or alternatively watch Netflix in the car or all these other features that exist to remind you that the world has changed and “you’re not in Kansas anymore Dorothy” so start getting used to it.
The Ionik 5 is actually built on an SUV chassis, which means it is higher and more spacious than the Tesla; Its seats are more comfortable and the sitting position in them is higher; And in the senior version of the Ionic 5 – the Elite (the one that has) To Ido Yavnai who was very generous and above all very brave to give his vehicle for this comparative test drive, there are seats called “Relaxation Seats” meaning seats that can be fully reclined with footrests like in business class on an airplane. So if you have never had the chance to fly in business class, a test drive in the Ionic 5 is much cheaper. Beyond that, there is also the option of controlling the rear seats and cooling the seats, which can make a vehicle that was closed in the Israeli summer much more pleasant. The Ionique 5 is much more conservative than the Tesla when it comes to control and information display. A significant part of the Ionik 5 control is still done using buttons and levers and not only using a touch screen like in Tesla, which can make the adaptation to driving the Ionik 5 easier for those who will switch to driving other vehicles, but this, as I wrote before,
Could be a matter of adaptation. What is indisputable is the convenience of controlling the Hyundai through the control screens. Unlike Tesla, the Ionic 5 has two screens – a control screen in the center of the vehicle from which you can control the multimedia system and the air conditioner, etc., and another screen in front of the driver on which the various indicators are displayed such as the speed, the battery level, the video display on the right or left when turning, etc. Although the screens are narrower than the Tesla’s central screen, they are spread across almost the entire width of the dashboard in a way that reduces the need to look up while driving. Even in the area of storage, the Ionic 5 is more generous with a larger and more accessible trunk. There are a number of features though that I miss in the Ionic 5; The first is an environment control system that shows everything that is happening around you in real time and is able to identify different users and road conditions such as motorcyclists, trucks, cars and pedestrians. While the Ioniq also has environment control, collision warning, etc., this is done without a visual display of other cars in the vehicle’s vicinity. Tesla seems to be using the show to promote its vision of a future self-driving car, but I’ve found this feature to be useful to me even in self-driving today; while the second is remote software updates (OTA) that allow to fix faults and add features. Another feature that I would be happy for both Tesla and Hyundai to adopt – HUD (Heads Up Display) projection of information on the driver’s windshield, such a system currently exists in some Volkswagen and Jaguar vehicles for example and is very helpful in maintaining concentration while driving with all the flow of information and alerts that a modern vehicle produces.
Summary and insights
Now that we’ve reached the end of the experiment, what insights did I glean from my little experiment?
Tesla was the company that broke the ground and paved the path that the rest of the industry follows today. And this is also her approach in building an electric vehicle – to constantly challenge the boundaries of the industry. She doesn’t follow any path simply because she got used to the fact that there was no path and she has to pave it. Sometimes it seems that she is less concerned with what the driver wants, but rather with showing what is possible and where it is possible to go. Or to paraphrase Ben-Gurion’s famous saying, she doesn’t know what the driver wants, she knows what the driver needs. Ionik 5, on the other hand, was designed with a different approach, a more conservative and settled approach, an approach that tries to produce a vehicle that will not only be at the cutting edge of technology, but what electric vehicle will best suit the needs of Israeli Israel or Korean Kim to be more precise. A concept that actually wants to take an example from those who have already walked the path, an approach that tries to turn more towards the functional direction than just the cool and innovative direction (and perhaps one that is busy completing technological gaps due to a later entry into the world of electric vehicles). Here we are dealing with two different approaches to electric vehicle design, perhaps we can even say two generations, and it is interesting to continue to follow how the field of electric vehicles will continue to develop from here and what directions it will take.
And if you ask who won my little experiment? In my opinion, the victory is for the entire automotive industry, as well as for the earth’s climate, the transition to green energy, road safety and more.
A small step for the electric car, a big step for humanity.