Anything specific to the IONIQ that he likes more than the Tesla?
Here's his response, with my caveat that the comparison is between an out of warranty 9 year old, 155k mile Tesla to a brand new Ioniq. The difference in charging between my new Tesla and his Ioniq is not significant, nor did the S have autopilot (we both agree that at this point Tesla's AP is way better).
Oh boy. Things I miss:
1. Ease of use. There are some goofy things with the car. The car's navigation isn't as good. You can absolutely just use CarPlay/android auto, but it's not wireless. You also miss out on the car navigating routes through superchargers. You don't get the auto lock of a Tesla. This one is really nitpicking, but all the switches make sense except for one. To increase volume you push up, to increase cruise control speed you push up, to skip to the next song you push down. Just a weird one. I also had to spend some time mapping programmable buttons (which isn't hard, it's just a setting) to get a play/pause button. If you push in on the volume switch, it mutes audio. I'd much rather have a play/pause button, and I have one now, just weird that they chose mute over that.
2. I miss the supercharger infrastructure a bit. Electrify America has been great for me, but it doesn't quite have the reliability of Tesla, yet. Overall I'd be very comfortable driving to an EA station with no range to get anywhere else. Worst case I'd be able to call EA, and they'd reset the station if it was being buggy. I haven't had any problems though, and the issues I've heard of are pretty rare.
3. The app. Kind of goes into ease of use, but the Hyundai app doesn't work nearly as well. It's slow sending commands, and sometimes sends false notifications of my doors being unlocked (not a big deal, I just send a lock request anyway). Also, it's been a pain to interact with google home automations since it requires you to input an account pin for most commands. It's fine for basic things like settings charge limits, but there are features that have a subscription after 3 years that I probably won't pay for.
Things I like more:
1. The drive. The car does what I want it to. Exactly what I want it to. It is such an easy but fun drive. I can set highway driving assist, and as long as I'm not on some winding city road or a really poorly marked road, the car will drive itself. Highways are automatic. The drive can be really fun though. With regen paddles I love shifting down to 1-pedal driving to stop, and shifting out of it feels like I'm driving a manual. It takes some practice, but it's a blast. I thought getting a RWD would be a bit too slow. It's not.
2. The aesthetic. It's simply beautiful. It's surprisingly roomy inside for a relatively small suv. Road-trips are very comfortable. Way more comfortable than a Tesla. The car gets tons of looks and people asking about it.
3. Charging. Yes, I miss the comfort of supercharger infrastructure. However, charging in this car is so much faster. Getting to 80% battery capacity from any state of charge is always less than 30 minutes. The last 20% definitely slows down, but that's expected. Using 350kw chargers is so satisfying and so few cars can actually take advantage of them. Getting free charging for 2 years from EA is also really nice.
4. The warranty and lack of subscriptions. Free maintenance (for tire rotations and basic stuff) for 3 years is nice. I love the 10year/100,000 mile battery warranty, though. I haven't heard of any serious battery problems, which is a great start for a company relatively new to EVs, but knowing that the car is guaranteed for 100,000 miles is really reassuring. I also love that, besides the app, I won't have to choose any functionality of the car for its lifetime due to stupid subscription fees.
To me the choice is easy. It's a cheaper car, and you give up the Tesla ecosystem. That's it. The car has its quirks, but nothing you can't get used to. It's a beautiful, fun car, with guaranteed reliability.