Author: EVAI

More so than almost any other previous EV, the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N targets driving enthusiasts. Many of those enthusiasts may also be new to EVs and charging, so Hyundai is offering some options to help get them started.

For customers who purchase or lease a new Ioniq 5 N, Hyundai is providing a ChargePoint Home Flex Level 2 charger for free, or a $450 credit for use at ChargePoint’s public charging stations.

ChargePoint Home Flex Level 2 home charger for 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N

The home charger is the same unit Hyundai began offering to other EV customers last year, and the automaker is once again providing both the charger and installation through its Hyundai Home service. Launched in 2022, this aggregates home-charging possibilities for EV owners, as well as solar and energy storage options and provides bids for installation.

Hardwired installation through a Hyundai Home service provider is required, but Hyundai isn’t covering installation costs or any associated taxes and fees. Customers have 90 days from the date of vehicle purchase or lease to redeem the charger offer, and 180 days from that date to have installation completed. Customers who bought or leased an Ioniq 5 N prior to Jul. 16, 2024, must redeem by Oct. 14, 2024, and have installation completed through Hyundai Home by Jan. 12, 2025.

2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N

Customers who opt for the public-charging credit also have 90 days from the time of their purchase or lease of an Ioniq 5 N to redeem the credit, and two years to use it.

The Ioniq 5 N itself resets expectations for enthusiast EVs, adding genuine track capability to the incredible straight-line acceleration and accessible power many EVs already offer. While charging at racetracks still requires a bit of sorting, Ioniq 5 N owners now at least have more options for charging before and after track days.

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• Volvo might end gas models sometime after 2030 even if demand still exists
• Charging infrastructure, slower EV adoption are behind new timeline
• Volvo PHEVs will keep evolving toward EV, with smaller engines too

Although Volvo last week walked back plans to sell only plug-in vehicles by 2030, relaxing the electrified target to 90% by then, its executives were eager to place some nuance on the announcement. 

Beneath the recalibrated timeline, Volvo made clear in a series of roundtables with the press last week, that this doesn’t mean it will keep building gasoline models as long as regulators allow them to be sold. And it’s still ready to go 100% plug-in by then if the market demands it.

“We don’t want to chase BMW in building engines,” said Björn Annwall, Volvo’s chief operating officer and deputy CEO. “We want to build the best software-defined vehicles.”

Annwall is referring to remarks from BMW, as recently as earlier this year, affirming that it will continue to invest in engines. 

Volvo’s head of engineering and R&D Anders Bell also confirmed that while it might be making a small number of mild hybrids without a charge port into the start of the next decade, this announcement brings no change to Volvo’s end of internal combustion engine work. Volvo several years ago, on the business front, closed the door on ICE and spun off its engine development, with manufacture done by a new company jointly owned by parent Geely, of engines to be used in vehicles across Geely’s brands.

2024 Volvo S60 Recharge

Charging infrastructure partly to blame

“Over the past few years…generally, in the industry, everybody thought there would be adaptation of the battery electric vehicle faster,” said Bell. “Infrastructure didn’t grow in regions as fast as expected, and we need to be pragmatic.”

Volvo currently has about 1.5% of the global market, by sales, Annwall said, and in the early years of the next decade, if the global market is in the range of 50-70% EVs by then, Volvo is fine walking away from that sliver of its non-plug-in business. 

“I wish we had a crystal ball, and I think today’s announcement is about the fact that we don’t have a crystal ball,” said Annwall, explaining that it gains Volvo some strategic flexibility in how quickly the market evolves in different parts of the world. 

“It’s not about cutting down the vision to become fully electric,” he added. “It’s about the fact that we will keep the current technology fresh and competitive longer, up until 2030 and beyond, if required in order to be able to play in those markets.”

“I believe we’re going to get to fully electric quicker,” the executive said, reflecting on the new target. “If we talk about Northern Europe, if we talk about Norway, we did yesterday.”

Volvo used last week’s announcement as a chance to emphasize its Superset technology stack for software and electrical architecture set to debut on the 2025 EX90 electric SUV, and set to be evolved with subsequent EVs like the upcoming Volvo EX60 electric SUV due to arrive around 2026.  

2025 Volvo EX90 propulsion system

Evolving Volvo plug-in hybrid tech?

But to focus on propulsion, Volvo’s recalibrated strategy still means it plans to sell a great many plug-in hybrids by that target and well beyond. 

It’s substituted in larger battery packs every few years and raised motor output. The 18.8-kwh battery pack—today’s three-layer battery technology—is actually cheaper to produce than the previous two-layer battery tech, according to Annwall, and in the XC90 it can deliver 33 electric EPA miles and the stronger electric motor output at a lower cost than the previous generation. “I think we can continue to evolve the electrified part of the powertrain, and that’s our strategy.”

That said, the system still runs through a traditional eight-speed automatic transmission, as it did when Volvo phased in this system a decade ago, and the electric propulsion takes second fiddle to the combustion engine by power output and design. Green Car Reports asked several questions about when and how this system might evolve and got some hints. 

2024 Volvo XC90 Recharge

“The most important thing is to increase the internal efficiency even more,” said Erik Severinson, Volvo’s head of new car programs and operations strategy. Today electric machines are about 90% internal efficiency while combustion engines are around 30% internal efficiency, but there’s room above 90% efficiency, he said. “You will see that development.”

Severinson said that for future PHEVs there will be even less focus on the number of cylinders and more on the ultimate performance of the vehicle. Volvo has already subbed in 3-cylinder engines for its smaller plug-in hybrids. 

Volvo says that from its own data, on a globally average, its plug-in hybrids are driven 50% of their miles on electricity, and it’s on the increase. 

How much battery capacity and range is enough in a plug-in hybrid? Volvo has run a bunch of scenarios and conducted customer studies to understand how people are using their electric range, but Severinson wouldn’t comment on the tipping point. “At some point the battery gets big, the battery gets heavy, and cost goes up for the PHEV as well.” 

2025.5 Volvo XC90

2025.5 Volvo XC90

2025.5 Volvo XC90

Quicker charging times could make the size of the PHEV batteries less relevant, Severinson said. Although at present Volvo’s PHEVs in the U.S., including the 2025.5 Volvo XC90, still use a very slow, low-power 3.7-kw onboard charger that’s inadequate for midday charges. 

Bell would not comment on future tech solutions for PHEV—or for making the gasoline engine secondary with more of a range-extender approach—but he said that “we have a keen eye on what are the right technologies for us and for our customers for sure, and how much benefit.” He quickly added that “we need to be able to make sure that whatever product we do, it needs to be a Volvo. It needs to be a good experience, good NVH, good properties, reasonable towing, etc.—so that part doesn’t change, but the technology to support those choices might.”

A small electric SUV with 300 miles of range produces 52% fewer life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions than a comparable gasoline vehicle, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Greenhouse gas emissions from production and distribution are currently around double that of gasoline production and distribution, the DOE notes, but that’s more than offset by the tailpipe emissions of gasoline vehicles, which represent nearly three quarters of their total life-cycle emissions.

Comparison of 2024 lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of small SUVs (via U.S. Department of Energy)

And while producing and burning fossil fuels will never get cleaner, it’s possible for overall EV emissions to decrease through the use of renewable energy to power the grid. This is already happening. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in 2020 found that 94% of Americans already lived in a place where, based on the local grid, electric cars were cleaner than 50-mpg gasoline cars.

That being said, other analysis has found that SUVs are still not the best choice for the environment regardless of whether they’re powered by electricity or gasoline. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said earlier this year that SUVs emit 20% more CO2 compared to cars regardless of powertrain type. If those extra emissions were compared to countries, they would make SUVs the world’s fifth largest CO2 polluter, according to the IEA.

2025 Hyundai Kona Electric

The IEA also warned in 2023 that the SUV market is fueling global oil demand, countering some of the emissions reductions one might hope to see from higher EV adoption. SUVs are generally heavier than cars, which impacts efficiency of combustion and electric powertrains alike. That inefficiency is magnified by increased global SUV sales, which reached a record 48% in 2023, according to the IEA.

In this case the DOE’s distinction between overall SUV emissions and those of smaller models is key. The DOE previously noted that smaller SUVs are better for the environment in terms of CO2 emissions, and that EVs and plug-in hybrids are better still.

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General Motors is looking to patent an “Endurance Mode” to help electric race cars go the distance.

Not to be confused with a certain ill-fated electric pickup truck, Endurance Mode is designed to emphasize range over outright pace, according to a GM patent application published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Aug. 22, and originally filed by GM in early 2023.

An oft-repeated saying in racing states “to finish first, first you must finish.” As GM explains in the application, an EV may not be able to complete the required number of laps in a given race at its maximum power output. GM’s solution is to create a drive mode that limits output in order to allow the vehicle to complete more laps at a set pace.

NASCAR electric race car prototype – Photo via Bcomp

Onboard controllers would monitor a number of factors to achieve this, but a main focus would be on battery temperature, according to the application. Controllers would look at ambient temperature as well as cooling demand for both the pack and the vehicle’s climate control system.

Endurance Mode could be packaged as part of a Track Mode, with the driver able to toggle between the long-range mode and a Qualifying Mode that allows for full power for short sprints, GM suggests in the application. That would be similar to current track-capable EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N and Lucid Air Sapphire, and it’s something GM has already discussed in a separate patent filing. Drivers could also customize settings based on the specific track venue, GM adds.

NASCAR electric race car prototype – Photo via Bcomp

Not all patented ideas prove commercially viable, and in this case GM would also have to consider the rules of specific racing series. Formula E already limits power output most of the time, only allowing drivers to use full power during pre-race qualifying and in specific circumstances during a race. But the rules also specify less onboard energy than would be required to finish a race at maximum pace, forcing drivers to conserve energy.

GM doesn’t currently participate in any electric racing series, but it’s no stranger to motorsports. Switchable drive modes could prove useful if something akin to the electric NASCAR prototype shown earlier this year ever hits the track, or in the electric Corvette the automaker confirmed for production in 2022.

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