I was all set to pull the trigger on the Kona electric 2024 and have done a lot of reading and research. Here in the U.S I can get $7500 off the MSRP (good until the end of Jan). A limited trim winds up 40K out the door. I drive mainly freeway to work (66 miles RT three times a week) and intend to charge it in my garage. I like the interior and am impressed with all the tech. The car is mainly for me and occasional wife and very rarely a son or two. However, I am becoming a little freaked out by the numerous complaints of beeping, annoying alarms that come on for speed limits and "driver inattention". I've also heard that there is no way to turn this off permanently which means that you have to deal with this EVERY time you start the car. I currently have a Honda Clarity PHEV 2018 and there is no beep ever to annoy me. Am I being unreasonably fearful? I really value my quiet time in the car and would hate to be annoyed with constant beeps. Any advice appreciated.
I took a test drive in a 24 SEL last week and didn't notice any of the bells and beeps that are annoying all the British reviewers.
I bought a 2024 SEL last week. It had been transferred from another dealer, and I think whoever drove it between dealers had turned off the beeps for all of that stuff. I do get beeps if i turn on my turn signal when someone is next to me (i like to turn it on ahead of time, so others know my intention) but the lane warning is visual only, the speed limit is visual only. I do remember someone showing me where you can turn off the beeps in the touch screen system - in fact, I think they guy who did the test drive with me a week earlier (on a different car, which had already been sold) said that when he'd borrowed a Ioniq5 for a few weeks, he turned off the beeps because he was driving on country roads and the thing was beeping at him all the time.
I test drove the car but these test drives are very short, not on freeways and possibly in areas that do not give speed limit warnings. Even then I seem to recall that it beeped at me a few times about various things. I suppose I could turn off all of those intrusive things every time I get in the car but I wonder if that would be cumbersome?
I also didn't see the face monitoring device when I took a test drive that was driving the British reviewers bonkers. Did I miss it or is it possible that there are different safety systems on the US cars?
I have a '23 Kona Electric Limited in the US, chosen mainly for the LED lights and garage door remote control which are inexplicably absent from the lesser trims. No complaints, we love it, we only test drove one car make/model and this was without a doubt the right fit for us. Your commuting pattern should work out fine if you're going to have a level 2 charger, the slower level 1 charger (120 volt in the US) might not give you enough of a recharge between your commutes. Since the most recent previous vehicle was from the mid-2000's, all the assistence and safety enhancements take a bit to get used to. I left them all on. Perhaps the most frequent advisory warning beeps if you start to wander out of your lane and you haven't signaled a lane change. This is intended to increase driver alertness if you're fatigued and paying less attention. The other is the blind spot warning which kicks in if you signal a lane change and there's a vehicle in or approaching in that lane, when the orange indicator in the mirror is on. I also find this helpful and might occasionally keep me alive. There's also a cross traffic warning when backing, which also shows up on the backup camera. The only missing feature besides memory seat and mirrors, was the front parking proximity sensors, which on mine are only on the rear. I think a lot of these warnings can be turned off, but I don't know what's specific to what year, trim, and location.
