A while back I wrote two posts about my switch from an Opel Corsa to a Hyundai IONIQ 5 — the first about why I made the leap, the second about my first impressions after just 320 km and three days. In that second post I flagged one real headache: the home charging. My charger was crawling along at 1.7 kW, which is barely faster than a wall socket, and I said the real savings wouldn't kick in until I sorted out a proper home installation.
Well, it's now been 41 days. I've driven the car properly, lived with it through normal weeks and weird ones, wrestled with the charging setup, and — importantly — I finally have real numbers instead of spreadsheet predictions. So here's the honest, detailed update. The good, the frustrating, and the cable that's apparently entombed in cement.
The charging saga, part one: squeezing more out of the portable charger
Before I get to the wallbox, there's a chapter I didn't expect to write.
In the last post, the portable home charger was stuck at 1.7 kW and I was fairly gloomy about it. But it turns out I just hadn't learned how to configure the thing properly. Once I dug into the settings and figured out how to set it up correctly, I got that same portable charger up to 2.6 kW. No new hardware, no electrician — just actually understanding the device I already owned.
And here's the interesting part: 2.6 kW was enough for about 90% of our days. For normal life — the school runs, the commute, the everyday driving — charging overnight at 2.6 kW comfortably replaced what I'd used during the day. It worked.
The catch was the other 10%. On days where we did more than usual — a longer trip, a busier-than-normal schedule — 2.6 kW wasn't quite enough to fully recover overnight. So we developed a bit of logistics: if we knew the next day was going to be a big one, we'd put the car on to charge earlier the evening before, giving it more hours to top up. It was a small habit, a bit of planning ahead, and honestly it wasn't a big deal once it became routine. But it was a reminder that charging speed isn't just a number — it's the difference between "plug in and forget" and "plug in and think ahead."
The numbers: 41 days, 2,735 km, and €290.77 saved
Right, this is the part I've been waiting to write since the very first post, because now it's real data and not projections.
Between June 20th and August 31st — my first 41 days with the car — I drove 2,735 km. And over that period, compared to what the same driving would have cost me in the old petrol Corsa, the IONIQ 5 saved me €290.77.
Let me be completely honest about what that number means, because I promised from the start I'd never dress these figures up.
€290.77 in savings over 41 days did NOT fully cover the car's loan installments for that period. It didn't quite get there. But here's how I look at it: the shortfall means I'm paying roughly €25 out of my own pocket to drive a brand new car. Twenty-five euros. That's it. To go from a broken-down Corsa with a phantom fault and no space for my son, to a brand new IONIQ 5 with all the room in the world, seven-year warranty, silent and quick and comfortable — for about €25 a month more than I was already spending on fuel alone.
That's a trade I'll take every single day of the week. When I first ran the spreadsheet, the dream scenario was the car fully paying for itself. The reality is it ALMOST does, and covers itself to the point where the remaining cost is trivial. Twenty-five euros to drive a new car instead of nursing a dying one is something I live with very, very happily.
And crucially — this is with my charging setup still not fully optimized. As the charging gets faster and cheaper, that €25 gap should shrink further. Which brings me to the home installation.
The charging saga, part two: the wallbox, and a cable stuck in cement
So the plan, as I laid out last time, was to upgrade the home installation to 7.4 kW. That required two things: swapping the breaker, and replacing the existing cable (going from the thinner cable up to 6mm) so it could safely carry the higher current.
The breaker side was fine. The cable side... was not.
When the electrician went to replace the cable, we hit a wall — literally. The existing cable is stuck in the conduit. Our best guess is that at some point during construction, cement got into the tubing and effectively glued the cable in place. It won't go up, it won't come down, it won't budge. Which means we couldn't pull the new, thicker 6mm cable through the way we'd planned. The full upgrade to 7.4 kW is, for now, off the table until we find another route for the cabling.
That was a genuine disappointment. But it's not the end of the story, because we still made real progress.
Where the charging actually stands now
Even without the full cable replacement, installing the wallbox got me to 3.7 kW. That's more than double the 1.7 kW I started with, and a solid step up from the 2.6 kW I coaxed out of the portable charger. At 3.7 kW, I've got noticeably more breathing room — those "big day tomorrow" situations that used to need planning ahead are far less of an issue now, because the car recovers charge faster overnight.
And there's more headroom still to come, without touching that stuck cable. Right now I'm charging at 12A. The limiting factor at the moment is my electricity contract's power rating. When I upgrade my contract to 10.35 kVA of contracted power, I'll be able to push the wallbox to 16A — and that gets me to 5.7 kW.
So the roadmap is clear even with the cement setback: I'm at 3.7 kW now, and a simple contract change (not a construction job) will take me to 5.7 kW. That's not the 7.4 kW dream, but 5.7 kW is genuinely plenty for home overnight charging, and it gets me most of the benefit I was originally chasing. The stuck cable stung, but it hasn't derailed the economics.
What 41 days has taught me
A few honest reflections now that I've actually lived with this car for six weeks rather than three days.
First: the car itself remains flawless. Everything I loved in the first 320 km — the space, the silence, the instant acceleration, the comfort — has held up completely over 2,735 km. There's been no buyer's remorse, no "the honeymoon's over" disappointment. If anything, I like it more now than I did at the start, because the things that were novelties have become the comfortable normal.
Second: the charging is where all the real-world learning happens, and it's more of a journey than the reviews let on. Nobody tells you that you'll spend evenings learning to configure a portable charger, or that a cable might be cemented into your wall, or that your electricity contract's kVA rating is suddenly a number you care deeply about. The car is the easy part. The infrastructure around it is where you actually have to problem-solve. But every step — 1.7 to 2.6 to 3.7, and soon 5.7 — has made the ownership better and the economics stronger.
Third, and most importantly: the money works. Not perfectly, not the fairytale "it pays for itself entirely" I hoped for on day one — but €25 a month to drive a brand new electric car instead of a dying petrol one is a deal I'd sign again in a heartbeat. And as the charging improves, that gap only shrinks.
The verdict, six weeks in
Forty-one days. 2,735 km. €290.77 saved. A portable charger tamed, a wallbox installed, a cable defeated by cement, and a clear path to 5.7 kW ahead. If you'd told me on day one that I'd end up paying about €25 a month net to drive this car, I'd have taken it without hesitation — and now that I'm living it, I'd take it even faster.
The IONIQ 5 was the right call. The Corsa is a distant, slightly painful memory. And my son still has all the legroom in the world.
I'll check back in once I've hit the 5.7 kW mark and have a few thousand more kilometres of data. But for now, 41 days in, I'm exactly where I hoped I'd be — give or take €25 and one very stubborn cable.
Posted Using INLEO
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