Hyundai IONIQ 5 2022 – Road trip report: Northumberland to Devon & back

Stefan drove from Northumberland to Plymouth & back in his Hyundai IONIQ 5 73kWh.

Introducing your road trip

The trip was from home in Northumberland to Plymouth, Devon with a 2-day stopover just outside Winchester, Hampshire & then back to Northumberland. The trip was for 1 week travelling just over 1,500 miles.

Planning & preparation

The first decision was which car to take, the IONIQ 5 or the BMW 3 Series. In the end, the IONIQ won out as it would be more comfortable, more relaxing, easier to drive and more spacious; ultimately, it was going to be mainly motorway driving and less of a requirement for handling prowess.

The only planning undertaken was checking charging points along the route and locally. Destination charging wasn’t a priority as the location was more important. I already have the Electroverse card which covers most charging companies, plus the Bonnet, Pod Point and IONITY Apps.

There’s been a recent update from Hyundai for the satnav which now adds in charging stops automatically if there’s not enough charge in the battery to reach the destination.

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Charging

The route from Northumberland to Winchester was straightforward, with a charge at Wetherby services using GRIDSERVE. No issues with the chargers and no queues too. We made a second stop for charging just before Winchester and again no problems with charging.

However, it was after Winchester when charging went downhill. We took a day trip to Portsmouth and decided to use the chargers in the Park and Ride but they were out of order. So we drove into Portsmouth and found some chargers in a car park but the App wouldn’t connect and couldn’t connect using the RFID card. We tried another set in another car park but couldn’t get a signal for the App and the RFID wasn’t accepted.

We eventually found an InstaVolt charger at the ferry terminal which provided a charge. A guy with an e-tron arrived after I’d plugged in to say he’d been having the same problem with charging in Portsmouth, he went on to say that getting an EV was the worst mistake he’d made as he’s had nothing but charging problems.

The next day we left to go down to Plymouth and stopped off at the Osprey chargers in Buckfastleigh, which was a nice, fast easy charge. On the journey home, we stopped again at Buckfastleigh to charge as we hadn’t used the car in Plymouth and again no problems with charging.

However, for the rest of the journey I had problems with chargers that were out of order or not taking contactless such as GRIDSERVE at Wetherby. Prior to Wetherby, I wanted to have a further charge and had to go to 4 different Services as all chargers were either out of order or had queues. I’m glad I was following the ‘charge when you can, not when you have to’ motto!

Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip? If so, where were they and why were they great?

No, I was really only on motorways.

The Hyundai IONIQ 5

The car itself was faultless, it was very comfortable & relaxing. The lane keep assist was too twitchy and I kept it turned off and the automatic speed adjustment on motorways would suddenly increase to 70mph while in a 50mph zone. The average speed readout was very helpful though in average speed camera zones.

Road trip conclusion

It turned out to be a love/hate relationship with some frustration but that was down to the very poor charging infrastructure rather than the car itself. It also ended up costing me £60 more in charging than if i’d used my BMW. Next year, we will be taking a road trip down to Cornwall and in all honesty, I’ll be taking the BMW having looked at the current poor charging infrastructure in Cornwall and the cost of public charging.

Saying that, I will be keeping an eye out on the charging infrastructure. If it improves and the cost of public charging comes down (compared to petrol prices) then yes, I’ll take the IONIQ 5.