Tesla Model 3 v Nissan Leaf v Hyundai Ioniq Electric: 2019 comparison review

A lot of customers who choose an electric car will simply plug in at home overnight, or at the office during the day.

These three cars are similar in a few ways. Obviously they’re all electric. They’re all cars with five seats and four wheels. But that’s about where the similarities end - especially when it comes to how they drive. 

The Nissan Leaf was our least favourite car to drive of this trio, and there are a number of crucial reasons for that. 

Throttle response and braking are fine, but not amazing in the Leaf.

The first is ergonomics. The driver’s seat position is very high, and there’s no reach adjustment to the steering - that means that taller occupants may find themselves sitting high, with their arms too far outstretched because their legs would otherwise be too cramped. You’ll figure out within 10 seconds of sitting in a Leaf whether you can live with it or not, but after several hours, the answer for our taller testers was a clear ‘no’.

There are other elements that let it down. The ride is clumsy at higher speeds, and it doesn’t offer anywhere near the level of engagement for the driver as the other two cars here.

Throttle response and braking are fine, but not amazing. The Leaf has Nissan’s ‘e-pedal’ system - essentially an on-or-off aggressive regenerative braking system which the brand claims allows you to use just one pedal for the majority of your driving - but we didn’t use it on test because we aimed to keep things consistent (the other cars were set at ‘Standard’ for the Tesla, and Level 2 of four selectable levels (zero - no regen, 1 - light regen, 2 - balanced regen, 3 - aggressive regen) for the Hyundai. 

The Nissan Leaf was our least favourite car to drive of this trio.

The Nissan was the noisiest in the cabin, too, feeling less refined than its rivals with more whirrs, buzzes and groans, not to mention more wind noise.

The Hyundai Ioniq Electric was a very different beast to the Leaf.

It felt like any conventional i30 or Elantra to drive - which is a huge credit to Hyundai and its Aussie team, which has fettled with the suspension and steering to make it suit local roads and conditions. You can really tell, because it had the best ride comfort and compliance of this group, and accurate steering, too - it’s more exciting to drive than the Leaf, though not quite an excitement machine.

Hyundai offers a fully electric or a plug-in hybrid version of the Ioniq.

The Ioniq’s throttle and brake response is very predictable and easy to manage… just like a ‘normal’ car, then. We labelled it ‘adequate’ rather than ‘exciting’ when it came to taking of from a standstill, and it does have the slowest 0-100km/h time of these three cars - 9.9 seconds, where the Leaf claims 7.9 seconds and the Model 3 just 5.6 seconds. There is a Sport mode for more nippy acceleration.

Hyundai’s play to offer a fully electric version or a plug-in hybrid (with a 77kW/147Nm 1.6-litre petrol four-cylinder engine paired to a 44.5kW/170Nm electric motor and an 8.9kWh battery pack) or the series hybrid (with the same petrol engine, a smaller 32kW/170Nm electric motor and tiny 1.5kWh battery pack) means buyers have options beyond the EV, if it doesn’t suit their particular needs. 

But honestly our biggest positive for the Ioniq is its honest range display - the other cars felt like they were fluctuating more in terms of the displayed range remaining, where the Ioniq seemed more measured and realistic in its displayed range remaining. The biggest negative for this car? Second row head room, and the vision from the driver's seat - that split tailgate and sloping roofline make it hard to see what's behind you.

The Ioniq’s throttle and brake response is very predictable and easy to manage.

If you’re chasing the high-tech, futuristic, minimalistic, and most advanced experience, go the Tesla. I mean, if you can afford it.

We know that there’s an avid Tesla fanbase out there, and the brand certainly offers design appeal and desire - in fact, we think it’s the most prestigious of these three cars, but not quite a luxury car to sit in, or to drive.

The cabin is something you’ll either love or want to leave. It’s a simple space that takes a fair bit of learning, with everything - like, literally - being controlled through screen. Okay, apart from the hazard lights (which are oddly positioned up near the rear-view mirror) and window controls. Suffice to say, you need to sit in one to see if you like it.

The big let down with the Model 3 Standard Range Plus is its ride.

While this may not be the performance version of the Model 3, it still has 0-100 time of a serious hot hatch, but with the rear-wheel drive dynamism of a primo sedan. It feels more engaging to drive in the twisty bits, with a really nice level of balance to the chassis.

The acceleration is markedly more instantaneous when you select Standard drive mode rather than Chill - the latter of which dulls throttle response in order to save battery. But use it sparingly if you’re aiming for the best range you can get.  

The big let down with the Model 3 Standard Range Plus is its ride. The suspension struggles to cope with lumps and bumps in the road surface, be it at higher speeds or urban running. It just doesn’t feel as composed or comfortable as the other two cars here. So if ride comfort matters, make sure you give it a good go on some bad surfaces.

While this may not be the performance version of the Model 3, it still has a 0-100 time of a serious hot hatch.

One advantage the Tesla has over its rivals is the already-established Supercharger fast charge stations.

These fast chargers allow you to recharge ultra rapidly - up to 270km in 30 mins - although you need to pay $0.42 per kWh to do so. But the fact that the Model 3 has a non-Tesla specific Type 2 plug and the CCS connection is a plus, as the Hyundai only has Type 2, while the Nissan has Type 2 and the Japanese-spec CHAdeMO fast charge system.

One way at looking at value for money when considering these cars is how many dollars you pay for each kilometre of electric driving you can do. This is what we’re calling our patented ‘Cost per Kay of Range’ calculation.

We did the numbers based on the NEDC claimed range for each car, and the list price of each car, before on-road costs. And we also did it based on the actual calculated range we experienced on test - here are the figures.

Dollar per kilometre, and with all of its futuristic tech and amazing space utilisation, the Model 3 is a really impressive thing. If it were even more efficient, it would have aced both aspects of this calculation.

If you look at the dollar per kay metric based on claimed range, the Ioniq actually appears expensive. But the initial buy-in, comparatively, is not, and against its real world consumption it actually stands up as the best value because it’s the most efficient. If you value the idea of conventional car elements with a futuristic drivetrain, it’s a superb offering, one that we’d recommend wholeheartedly.

The Leaf appears decent value based on the claimed range calculation, but its real-world inefficiency meant it’s price per kay calculation was by far the worst here.