‘Dorset to Balintore’ unsurprisingly drove from Dorset to Scotland & back in their Hyundai IONIQ 5 Project 45.
Introducing your road trip
Travelled from Dorset to Balintore in the Highlands, a distance of 640 miles as part of a holiday in Scotland to celebrate our Golden Wedding Anniversary. We spent a week in the Highlands touring round before travelling to Perth to stay with my sister-in-law for another week in order to take family and some friends out for a superb meal on our Anniversary.
We then travelled back to Dorset. Overall, we travelled a total of 1,436 miles and charged 11 times at public chargers. We only had to wait once for a charger, at Gretna Green, which was absolutely packed with cars. All other locations we were able to charge immediately on arrival and by the time we had our coffees and used the facilities, the car was charged and ready to go. The best part of the journey, on very congested motorways, was that the IONIQ 5 drove itself superbly on all the motorways, about 80% of the total distance.
Planning & preparation
I used Zapmap to plan our charging stops. That worked really well as I put the sites into our sat nav and it took us to each location without any problems.
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Charging
We charged at as many IONITY chargers as we could, as the IONIQ 5 is a very rapid charger and I got between 140-180kWs charging at those even over 40% charge level. The others were at Banbury (no details on the chargers regarding max power level, very confusing) and at Warwick. We also charged at the open Tesla charger at Aviemore. This is open to non-Tesla vehicles but was a real pain as it had lost my initial registration which I then had to repeat in order to use the charger. However, it worked eventually, so that adds to the chargers I can use.
Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip?
The A9 in Scotland goes through some fabulous scenery, although the average speed cameras are a bit of a pain. Just be aware of them if travelling on this road.
The IONIQ 5
The IONIQ 5 exceeded all my expectations. The real revelation was the reliability of the self-driving capability. On the motorways it was quite superb, needing only a hand on the wheel. Lane changing worked very well and overall the car drove itself over about 80% of the 1,436 mile round trip.
Road trip conclusion
This trip absolutely confirmed the IONIQ 5 as a superb road trip vehicle and I would definitely do a similar trip again.
See other road trip reports here
