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With all the cold weather I had to take OHM-RIDE to the Dinosaur reprocessing facility this morning <sigh>.
After walking around the car to remember where the nozzle goes I finally started paying attention to my surroundings and realized I was parked behind a shiny new Hyundai Ioniq, then when I talked to the owner he told me his was actually a PHEV so we wound up spending a few minutes looking at each other's vehicles and talking about the similarities and differences.
He let me get in and sit but it was brief as we both needed to get to work so my impressions were gained from about 60 seconds of observation.
Interior seemed pretty roomy. A lot of the bits and bobs are recessed or otherwise designed to increase a feeling of space in the passenger compartment. Not a bad job at all.
Dash display was a very clean layout with a big fat dial in the center. the center information display was pretty nice, sunk into the dash to avoid glare but still looking like an integrated design and not an afterthought. I very much appreciated the physical button layout of the various radio and climate controls. I think with very little orientation you could do most functions without taking your eyes from the road at all.
The "shifter" is 4 push buttons for D, R, N, P mounted forward on the center console. I'm not sure I liked them being on the center console, it seems like it'd be easy to hit them unintentionally but I didn't think to ask the driver if there was any kind of lockout to the buttons. He said it was a (six?) speed transmission and was absolutely fascinated that the Volt doesn't shift.
The steering wheel is the "flat bottom" type which actually makes it easier for the driver to enter/exit the car. I wasn't sure when I saw it but liked it once I got in.
As to the exterior. I really didn't find much to care about one way or the other with the exterior. It has decent lines and is just fairly understated overall. It is somewhat Prius like in overall shape, but seems a bit "fatter" in the rear "hips" near the wheels. I liked the way the shape curves over from the rear quarter panels into the hatch and back of the car though I think they need to re-think the bottom of the rear to break up the lines a bit because to me it looks like it's about to drag it's butt on the ground.
The owner said the only real complaint he has is that the pure EV acceleration is pretty anemic, so he's running mostly in hybrid mode.
Of course the Ionic wins points for being a nice shiny new vehicle
But in terms of style/design... I'll still take the Gen 1 Volt
Wish I could have driven it though.
After walking around the car to remember where the nozzle goes I finally started paying attention to my surroundings and realized I was parked behind a shiny new Hyundai Ioniq, then when I talked to the owner he told me his was actually a PHEV so we wound up spending a few minutes looking at each other's vehicles and talking about the similarities and differences.
He let me get in and sit but it was brief as we both needed to get to work so my impressions were gained from about 60 seconds of observation.
Interior seemed pretty roomy. A lot of the bits and bobs are recessed or otherwise designed to increase a feeling of space in the passenger compartment. Not a bad job at all.
Dash display was a very clean layout with a big fat dial in the center. the center information display was pretty nice, sunk into the dash to avoid glare but still looking like an integrated design and not an afterthought. I very much appreciated the physical button layout of the various radio and climate controls. I think with very little orientation you could do most functions without taking your eyes from the road at all.
The "shifter" is 4 push buttons for D, R, N, P mounted forward on the center console. I'm not sure I liked them being on the center console, it seems like it'd be easy to hit them unintentionally but I didn't think to ask the driver if there was any kind of lockout to the buttons. He said it was a (six?) speed transmission and was absolutely fascinated that the Volt doesn't shift.
The steering wheel is the "flat bottom" type which actually makes it easier for the driver to enter/exit the car. I wasn't sure when I saw it but liked it once I got in.
As to the exterior. I really didn't find much to care about one way or the other with the exterior. It has decent lines and is just fairly understated overall. It is somewhat Prius like in overall shape, but seems a bit "fatter" in the rear "hips" near the wheels. I liked the way the shape curves over from the rear quarter panels into the hatch and back of the car though I think they need to re-think the bottom of the rear to break up the lines a bit because to me it looks like it's about to drag it's butt on the ground.
The owner said the only real complaint he has is that the pure EV acceleration is pretty anemic, so he's running mostly in hybrid mode.
Of course the Ionic wins points for being a nice shiny new vehicle
But in terms of style/design... I'll still take the Gen 1 Volt Wish I could have driven it though.
