Hyundai Ioniq 5 Drives Nearly 20,000 KM to the Arctic Ocean on a Single Charge… Sort Of

You wouldn’t typically take an electric crossover to the Arctic Circle. You’d take a shovel, a thermos, and maybe a Ford Super Duty filled with regret. But one stock Hyundai Ioniq 5 has just completed a 19,743-kilometer round trip from Ontario to the Arctic Ocean — and back — without a drop of fuel.

The man behind the wheel, Patrick Nadeau, set off from Hyundai Canada’s headquarters in Markham on April 24, reaching the remote town of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, by June 10. His car? A showroom-spec 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 Preferred AWD with the Ultimate Package, wrapped for visibility, but otherwise untouched. The real test wasn’t range. It was resilience — and the Ioniq 5 passed on both fronts.

This was no lightly padded road trip. Over nearly 20,000 kilometers, Nadeau’s Ioniq 5 averaged 18.9 kWh/100 km, needed 87 charging stops, and carried 400 pounds of gear — including a full-size spare. Total cost in electricity? Just $1,403 CAD — or around $1,025 USD — for a journey that would’ve cost more than twice that with gas.

Notably, this wasn’t the high-performance Ioniq 5 N, the $66,000 beast that Hyundai recently dropped a competitive lease deal on. This was the more grounded, long-range version, and that made the feat more relevant — especially for real-world EV buyers who are less interested in drift modes and more concerned with how their EV will perform on a winter highway.

Of course, for those still cross-shopping the Ioniq 5 N, experts have suggested there might be better value in trims like the Limited or Preferred unless you’re heading straight for a race track. This journey underscores that point — a factory-standard Ioniq 5 handled thousands of kilometers, gravel roads, flooded ferry crossings, and wildfire detours with zero mechanical complaints. It’s what you’d call a stress test in the real world.

Hyundai also used the trip to support its Hope on Wheels campaign, shooting virtual reality content that will soon be delivered to children’s hospitals across Canada. The goal: provide young patients with immersive VR experiences of Canada’s north, bringing the Arctic into treatment rooms through the eyes of the Ioniq 5’s windshield.

That mission aligned nicely with the Ioniq 5’s broader appeal — a car that’s as comfortable in slushy city commutes as it is charging through the Yukon. As we saw in our review of the refreshed 2025 Ioniq 5 Limited, the car blends performance, comfort, and usability in a way that’s steadily won over skeptics.

After reaching the Arctic Ocean and pausing briefly in Ucluelet, British Columbia during the 2026 Ioniq 9 media launch, Nadeau turned the journey home into a rapid-fire sprint, averaging over 1,000 km per day. A trip that started as a slow-paced sightseeing mission became a no-nonsense return leg that proved the Ioniq 5’s rapid charging ability and fatigue-free ride comfort.

No charging miracles. No super-secret prototype tweaks. Just a regular Ioniq 5 and a bit of planning — the same kind of trip more EV drivers may soon find themselves attempting as infrastructure improves.

In short, this wasn’t just a road trip. It was a rolling case study — not in speculation, but in execution. The Ioniq 5 didn’t just survive the Arctic. It made it look easy.