2026 Hyundai Ioniq 9 Preferred AWD

[dkazzed]

Congrats! Glad that you're enjoying it. Is this your first EV?
These are kinda striking to see on the road, I came up behind one a few weeks ago and was like "wtf is that!", especially with all the rear LEDs lit up, 5th Element vibes.

Yes first EV, although I've had a couple of eBikes that served as my intro to EVs. My only gripe with the rear LEDs is that it isn't all connected when the brake lights are on! I wonder if there were US DOT requirements for three distinct brake lights that forced Hyundai to disable some of the pixels.

North America:


Overseas:

Nice! These are strangely not popular in Montreal, I think the only one I've seen is on the little ramp podium outside of a Hyundai dealer. Which is strange, because I see a ton of Kia EV9s on the road. I'm not sure why people here seem to be going for the Kia version...

There's a Kia EV9 in my condo garage and the thing is HUGE... It's owned by an older couple who bought it maybe 6 months ago to replace a 2nd generation Highlander. Definitely the right size for a family.

They're both very big, with terrible turning radius with AWD, the RWD variant has a tighter turning circle. I wonder if they got a GT-Line/GT with self parking capability? Ioniq 9 Calligraphy I believe also does the same.

Kia EV9 has been around since late 2023, so it had over a year and a half head start over Hyundai Ioniq 9. I'm not sure about Quebec but EV sales in BC trended downwards in 2025 from its record high of around 22.4% of all new car sales in 2024.

Congrats on the new wheels.  Were you the one that was dreaming about that VW EV Van thingy?  Making the switch to go with an EV as your only vehicle is bold but if you are going into it with open eyes and figure it's the best option who am I to dispute that.

Yea that's me, we still had ID.Buzz on our radar but ultimately for our soon to be family of 7, the inability to buy a 7 seater 4Motion (only RWD came with 7 seats, which is exceedingly rare here) is what killed the deal. Also the battery, 106 kWh vs. 86 kWH usable, and aerodynamics makes a difference between being able to go to Jasper on one charge vs. having to charge along the way, although with this many kids we don't often go more than 2 hours without stopping anyway.

And then towing capacity, 5,000 lb vs. 2,700 (RWD)/3,500 (4Motion) lb, not that we're planning to max out the towing capacity as we'll be maxed out by payload and tongue weight before we max out towing capacity, but we'll post how that goes. I'm guessing 160-200 km range towing Someone is hungry/thirsty/need to use the washroom, they always are.

[Blueprint]

^37.7 kWh/100 km, that's while towing that U-Haul in winter, as per the pics, I presume?

[dkazzed]

^37.7 kWh/100 km, that's while towing that U-Haul in winter, as per the pics, I presume?

It is, 60% freeway driving (100 km/h), loaded with about 400kg of stuff.

Congrats on the purchase!

The journalist / colleague I shared the "Annuel de l'automobile" booth with at the auto show, a guy that drives all the high-end stuff, bought an EV9. That's an endorsment of the platform if I ever saw one!

Thanks! Honestly that's something I ask myself, if the Lucid Gravity Grand Touring was in our budget, how likely would we have gotten an Ioniq 9 anyway? Well the tow range on the Gravity is pretty good.

[dkazzed]

Charge up to 100% before heading down to Drumheller and Calgary. There was no way we will get this on the highway, but the balmy weather and mostly city driving the past couple of weeks lead to great numbers. I can't wait to see what we get in the spring.



Made it 283 km to Drumheller with 43% remaining. Cruised at 100 most of the trip. Temperatures were between -5 and 0 most of the trip, only warming up to +4 in the valley. 59m elevation gain overall. Spent a lovely afternoon at Royal Tyrell Museum.



We got to a Petro Canada charger north of Calgary at (117 km, 400 km total) with 10% on the account of headwinds and climbing 376m overall. Just a 10 minute charge, enough to get to the zoo the next day where I was able to charge at a Level 2 charger at Telus Spark next door. Going home, charged to 80% overnight, did some things downtown, and got to Red Deer Electrify Canada with 40% 197 km and 177m elevation loss later. I used about 5% battery preconditioning. I wanted to see how fast it would charge, and it did 43% to 80% in 17 minutes, peaking at 212 kW according to the charger or 216 kW according to our vehicle. I only meant to charge to 60% to get home with 20% remaining as they were a lot pricier than Petro Canada and home charging, and a bit more expensive than gas, but $32 wasn't the end of the world.





Got home with 40% remaining, 163km with an overall drop of 232m.

[RRocket]

Cool!! Sounds like a great little adventure!

I have zero patience for waiting to charge, so I'm unlikely to ever take my EV in a roadtrip that exceeds its range.

[dkazzed]

It was so fun.

Our first stop there wasn't much to do so we kept it short. Overnight I couldn't sleep so I drove the newer part of Stoney Trail/Tsuu'tina Trail that completed the ring road around Calgary, and then used my phone while charging at Petro Canada. At Electrify Canada, we went into Save On Foods to get a couple of things and was back at the vehicle just as it hit 80%. Had I only charged to 60%, I risked paying an idling fee.

I think timing charging stops with food and break stops is key. With gas, we typically stopped an average of one hour every 400km anyway.