Upgrading my 172 Ioniq - the experience so far

Hi all,

I am currently upgrading my 172 Ioniq and I thought I would summarize the experience, it might help some other people looking for new EV at the moment.

I have decided several months ago it would be a good idea to upgrade my car, as I have noticed a drop in the range and also drop in the value of the car. Rather than wait for couple of years and trade it in for nothing, I thought I would cash in now whilst it is worth something. The budget was up to 40k and I was hoping to get approx 17k for my car.

I have tried the following in the last couple of weeks/months:

Skoda Eniaq - while I liked the car, it is nice and roomy, it is almost impossible to get to an actual price for the car, as the dealerships are not sure when they can actually deliver. In Galway I was even told that they were asked by Skoda to call customers and demand higher price as their costs have increased. The availability is terrible, Jan-Feb of 2023, maybe.

Peugeot 2008 - I liked the car, but it was a little uncomfortable to sit in ( I am a big man). The dealearship in Mayo is run by very nice people and I cannot fault them, they offered the highest trade in for my car, almost 17k. I never discussed availability with them.

Citroen e-C4 - this is very similar to 2008, I would say it is even a little nicer design-wise, but I had the same price, it was not a comfortable car for me. Also, after the test drive the dealer promised to come back to me with the price for the car and trade-in, and I am still waiting, month later. It looks to me like they were not really interested to sell EVs, just yet.

Ioniq 5 - even though this is a little over budget, we tried it, it is a really love or hate car and my other half hated it.

MG ZS - this is a very nice car, very roomy and it looks it has all the electrical toys you would want, however the availability I was told is next year and again the sales person in dealership was not really interested to spend time with me and go through any details.

Nissan Leaf - one of the better cars, it drives well and they are experienced in the dealerships, but I was a little concerned by relatively short range of the lower battery version, and the 64kWh is quite a jump in price. Nissan even offers to lend you the car for a weekend if you are interested, so you can get really familiar with it, we did not ask for this, it was offered by the sales person.

Mazda MX30 - I visited the dealership in Galway, the do not even have a demo car and do not know when they will get one - so that was it. I also read quite a bad reviews about the short range, so I have removed this from the selection.

Open Mokka-e - again, no stock of demo car in Galway, at least I was able to see the petrol version in the showroom and see how the car looks. It is a nice car, especially in the higher spec version, and the price of it is also competitive. It is, however, not possible to get the lead time for the new car, as Open has issues with chips as everybody else.

Huyndai Kona - one of the cars still in the race, very familiar to my Ioniq, I wished it had a little bigger boot, but overall it is a very good value, I just cannot decide whether to got for Executive or Premium version. The trade in value differs between the dealerships, I have got from 12.5k to 16k, so you really need to shop around. The availability is great, you can have your car pretty much immediately, there is several colour version available.

Kia e-Niro - When I visited the dealership I was immediately told that e-niro is pretty much discontinued and cannot be ordered anymore as new version is coming. I looked online and tried to find some details, it seems this is H2 2022 car and probably will be about 44k in price, with demo cars arriving to Ireland in August. As new version is over budget, I looked at the current version and there seem to be several cars available in dealerships around country for good value, most of these are long range with over 400km and similar design and specs to Kona. I am due to test drive this, hoping this weekend.

So, in summary, I think the Kia and Hyundai offer the best combination of value / availability at the moment and I will decide between one of these, I think I will also try to sell my car privately (let me know if anybody is interested, 172 Ioniq, with 108k, in black, does about 190km in winter, about 210 in summer, still in warranty).

So I will update this thread once the decision is made, hopefully this looong text will help somebody in their search.