cawimmer430
Piston Pioneer
Today's shoot for Focus SUV Magazine: the Hyundai Nexo (Fuel Cell) and Hyundai Kona E (Electric Car).
Unedited out-of-camera RAW-converted-to-JPEG shot.
And yeah, during and after the shoot I was able to test drive both cars on the long runway and do a few "laps". This is the first time in my life that I drove and experienced both a pure EV and a Fuel Cell vehicle. Here my impressions.
Short POV video of me driving the Hyundai Nexo for the first time.
KONA E (Electric Car)
Decent interior quality. Not cheap or overtly premium in feel, just decent with great build quality. Very roomy interior and comfortable seating position.
Smooth, quiet and quick acceleration and obviously instant torque. It's a "slow" car (0-100 km/h in under 10 seconds) but it feels faster because of the instant torque and smooth acceleration.
Decent steering feedback and a well-balanced suspension. Not overly sporty, but not vague either.
I could feel the weight balance due to the placement of the batteries in the vehicle's floor region.
On the downside, the range went down when you turned on heating. The car was relatively fully charged and when I drove it had a range of 410 km (max range at full batteries is 460 km) - but when you turned on the heater (it was a cold and rainy day), the range went down from 410 km to 360 km. That's 50 km that just went missing!
NEXO (Fuel Cell)
Decent interior quality. Not cheap or overtly premium in feel, just decent with great build quality. Very roomy interior and comfortable seating position.
Again, smooth, quiet and quick acceleration and obviously instant torque. Like the Kona E, it's not blisteringly fast but it feels fast due to the instant torque.
Decent steering feedback and a well-balanced suspension. Not overly sporty, but not vague either. Drove pretty similar to the Kona E despite being larger.
The hydrogen tank was pretty much 90% full, and the car had a range in excess of 460 km.
Verdict? Despite these cars being nothing special in terms of how they drove, I found them surprisingly both fun to drive. There really wasn't a big difference between them. They more or less had the same steering and suspension feel and felt similar the way they drove. I found the Kona E, the EV, to be slightly, just slightly more responsive when you hammered it.
One thing that really unnerved me in both cars was the silence. It's something that most of us are used to, but I like hearing my engine make noise. The silence in both cars was a very unnerving feeling; I found it also somewhat distracting ("Huh, where's the engine noise!?"). It's definitely something you need to get used to. Other than that I had no issues adjusting to driving an EV or Fuel Cell car. What I also liked was how both cars would slow down so much when you took your foot off the accelerator, but you quickly get used to it. So, I had fun today.
Which one would I take? Hmmm... I'm all about range and quick refueling, so for now the Nexo wins. I really hope that in the future EVs will have more range and quicker charging times. Then I could see myself actually owning one.
Unedited out-of-camera RAW-converted-to-JPEG shot.
And yeah, during and after the shoot I was able to test drive both cars on the long runway and do a few "laps". This is the first time in my life that I drove and experienced both a pure EV and a Fuel Cell vehicle. Here my impressions.
Short POV video of me driving the Hyundai Nexo for the first time.
KONA E (Electric Car)
Decent interior quality. Not cheap or overtly premium in feel, just decent with great build quality. Very roomy interior and comfortable seating position.
Smooth, quiet and quick acceleration and obviously instant torque. It's a "slow" car (0-100 km/h in under 10 seconds) but it feels faster because of the instant torque and smooth acceleration.
Decent steering feedback and a well-balanced suspension. Not overly sporty, but not vague either.
I could feel the weight balance due to the placement of the batteries in the vehicle's floor region.
On the downside, the range went down when you turned on heating. The car was relatively fully charged and when I drove it had a range of 410 km (max range at full batteries is 460 km) - but when you turned on the heater (it was a cold and rainy day), the range went down from 410 km to 360 km. That's 50 km that just went missing!
NEXO (Fuel Cell)
Decent interior quality. Not cheap or overtly premium in feel, just decent with great build quality. Very roomy interior and comfortable seating position.
Again, smooth, quiet and quick acceleration and obviously instant torque. Like the Kona E, it's not blisteringly fast but it feels fast due to the instant torque.
Decent steering feedback and a well-balanced suspension. Not overly sporty, but not vague either. Drove pretty similar to the Kona E despite being larger.
The hydrogen tank was pretty much 90% full, and the car had a range in excess of 460 km.
Verdict? Despite these cars being nothing special in terms of how they drove, I found them surprisingly both fun to drive. There really wasn't a big difference between them. They more or less had the same steering and suspension feel and felt similar the way they drove. I found the Kona E, the EV, to be slightly, just slightly more responsive when you hammered it.
One thing that really unnerved me in both cars was the silence. It's something that most of us are used to, but I like hearing my engine make noise. The silence in both cars was a very unnerving feeling; I found it also somewhat distracting ("Huh, where's the engine noise!?"). It's definitely something you need to get used to. Other than that I had no issues adjusting to driving an EV or Fuel Cell car. What I also liked was how both cars would slow down so much when you took your foot off the accelerator, but you quickly get used to it. So, I had fun today.
Which one would I take? Hmmm... I'm all about range and quick refueling, so for now the Nexo wins. I really hope that in the future EVs will have more range and quicker charging times. Then I could see myself actually owning one.
