Hyundai Inster 370 EV miles to Edinburgh! Broken chargers, closed motorway, good lunch!
I’m going to drive this Hyundai Insta electric car all the way to Scotland to see what it’s like. Hopefully better than the last time I took an EV to Scotland. So, we’re currently here in Mansla where I’ve just been driving a Volvo S60. Uh but uh let’s jump back to the electric car. While I was away um having lunch, we actually put it on charge here. Uh it’s dragon charging. Obviously, it was facing the other way. The ports here at the front. Uh this is just for artistic effect, but uh it cost £9 to effectively put 70 mi of range in, which works out at about 12.9 p per mile just for the fuel cost. So public chargers, it’s 65 um p per kowatt here. Not very um cost effective. Much cheaper if you can charge at home, which many of us cannot. And that remains the biggest problem with EVs. Uh but uh nonetheless, I just plugged it in and had lunch and put 70 mi of range in while I was having lunch. I didn’t have to wait for that. I just came back and took it off and that’s what had happened. Uh it’s a type two charger as they call it. There are some rapid chargers here as well. So they will charge this up in about an hour uh much quicker, but uh I I used the reasonable ones because I didn’t need to fill fill the tank so to speak. Now, through the course of this test, we will do a full review on this vehicle. But, uh, if I, um, scroll down, there goes the Volvo. Uh, if I scroll down to, um, since last reset, we can see the sort of economy figures we’re getting. And I’ll explain what those actually mean. So, since last reset, it’s done 4.4 miles per kowatth. Uh, on the way here, I actually got that up to 5.1. So, from those numbers, it’s quite easy to work out the range. Effectively, we’re paying 65 p uh per kilowatt hour. And while it charged, it put 13.9 kwatt hours into the battery pack. So, 13.9* 5 let’s say miles per kilowatt hour is 69 miles. So, um there therefore you can work out what your pile is, uh which is 12.9. So, compared to petrol and diesel, it’s it’s actually not that far off because this is quite an economical car. Um, it it’s kind of about there or thereabouts with diesel or petrol just in that fuel alone cost. But that is using the public charger. If you can home charge, you could charge this car up for just a few pounds from naugh to 100%. Uh, then you’re absolutely laughing. And this is the problem with EVs that there is becoming a socioeconomic split uh between the people who have a household with a driveway and can have home charging and those the many of us who don’t. It it’s a serious split and it means that one half of society gets really cheap fuel effectively and one half does not. But whether that can change in future, I don’t know. But uh the reason I’m doing the trip up to Scotland in a little car like this is because I’m hoping for that five miles per kilowatt hour. So I’m hoping that will help keep the cost down. But we will keep a log of the costs throughout the trip and see how much it actually costs us. But uh I need to get home. So we’ll just have a quick look around the car before we go again. Uh because it’s actually not raining at the moment. And uh I think it’s a lovely bit of design. It’s beeping because I’ve got the key in my pocket. Uh I quite like the cross wheels. They’re quite smart. I like these um big buggy headlamps on the front, but actually look like, you know, actual headlamps of old. And uh I like the fact they got the handles hidden on the back for the rear doors. That’s quite nice. Obviously, everything shuts really nicely. Uh I like the rear light design. Uh this is your tail lights up here. And then you got the indicators down here. I could probably actually put them on. and uh demonstrate. So uh of course the lights on and the hazards. So here’s your tail lights. Obviously not flashing. That’s just refresh rates. And the indicators down here along with the brake lights. And uh when you open up uh the tailgate, the uh tail light swaps to down here. So you’re still showing a tail light um while these are up in the air. and uh just like be it’s really upset about the key situation. So there’s your front indicators and then uh we got the driving lights with the headlights uh in between. So quite a nice thing and I quite like the interior as well. Uh if we jump in, I just think it’s really quite nice and classy in here. I put the lights back on auto. Uh digital climate control. This is quite a high-spec model. So we’ve got digital climate control. We got paddles to control the regenerative braking. Uh what that is is it changes the behavior when you lift off the pedal. If you’re in a low level of regen, see at the bottom of this here. So that’s a low level. It means the car doesn’t really slow down when you take your foot off the brake. But when you crank it up, and I like it in ipedal mode. That means that when you start lifting off the throttle, the motor turns into um a generator and actually starts putting energy back into the battery. Gives quite a strong engine braking effect. In fact, in ipedal mode, the car will use the service brake as well and will come to a complete stop just with your use of the throttle pedal. So, I tend to leave it in ipedal mode. It means I have to keep some pressure on to to coast. Uh because uh if I lift off the needle will swing down here into regen and if it’s in a lesser mode it is less inclined to do that. Uh just do a quick wiper review. Very good wiping performance. Look there’s almost no unswept area down here. There’s no little triangle down there. There’s good overlap. No triangle of doom. Automatic headlamps as well. They’re very good. We got a little wiper on the back which is very slow but does a pretty decent job. Cup holders were well sorted forward as a couple here. The bench sort of extends. Uh but to stop you treating it as a bench, I put cup holders in it. We got a little armrest here as well, which I’m using to secure my drink in. Nice comfortable seat, although always a problem on modern cars. I find the head restraint kind of forces my head forward. I can’t have my head as far back as I want to really shove my shoulders into the seat. You can make it worse. You can actually bring it forward even more. No, thank you. Uh, so I’ve got it as far back as possible and I’ve even raised the height to try and make it a bit better. It’s all for impact regulations cuz the closer your head is to the head restraint, the less whiplash you’ll get in the event of a rear ender. But I’d still rather be more comfortable all of the time than saved perfectly in a rear end collision cuz I spend more time sitting here not in a collision than I do in a collision. Nice big door mirrors as well. Here is our um gear controller down here. So, it’s just like the um into drive we go. Into reverse we go. Press the end and we’re into park. Uh just like the Ionic 5. In fact, a lot of it is like the Ionic 5, but it’s a much nicer size of vehicle. It’s much smaller than the Ionic 5. And I love the dials, these retro style dials going on. I think they’re absolutely lovely. So, uh, anyway, 146 mi of range on 70% of the battery, so uh, we got plenty of juice in. Uh, let’s get going. So, we got controls variously. Uh, obviously, you can connect your phone to the, um, incar entertainment. What I don’t love is it only seems to work on a cable. Uh, I don’t like doing that because it basically means your phone gets charged up all the time. Uh, and, uh, I just want a wireless connection. I don’t understand why that isn’t a thing. There’s a sensor right here which is looking at my eyes and when I’m not looking at the road enough that beeps and it does it quite a lot. But a quick tip, it’s got an annoying speed limit detector which obviously is wrong quite a lot of the time because they always are. If you press and hold the mute button here uh now it’s speed limiter warning sound is off. So at least I can ignore it. But I haven’t worked out how to turn this off. uh if it detects you, even if you’re looking at the screen, um if you’re looking at anything outside a bit too long, it starts beeping at you. I find that quite irritating. Uh so anyway, foot on the brake, into drive we go. Handbrake will release as I move off. And it kind of makes the um Dolby THX sound as you drive along, which is a bit weird, but there has to be some way of warning pedestrians you’re coming because electric cars are very good at sneaking up on people. Steering feels very light after being in the Volvo S60. It does weight up a little bit at speed, but it never really um uh gets really heavy. Nice feeling stalks. So, I’m in Oh, it’s come out of iPedle mode. That’s helpful. There we go. We’re back on again. This is one of the things that annoys me. If you turn it on and off, it comes out of ipedal mode, which means the next time you drive it, things respond differently and it didn’t tell you it was going to change. Uh, it was also the same on the Ionic 5. I don’t know why that is a thing and why you have to turn I pedal on. It’s how I prefer to drive. So, 20 mph speed limit, no problem at all. But uh very comfortable, compliant ride, I must say. And it’s also quiet in here. Uh apart from space because the boot is quite small. I’ll show you that. Uh well, actually, here’s a little clip of it. Size-wise, if you don’t need that boot space, I don’t see any reason to get an Ioni 5 over this. The Ionic 5 has more performance, but frankly, this has all the performance you need out on the road. But for all those people saying, I don’t want a big complicated SUV. I want something a bit smaller. This is perhaps the answer. Still complicated, but every modern car is regardless of power plant. You cannot build a simple car anymore. It’s just not possible because of the legislation and safety standards. So, uh coming up to national speed limit. Uh doing 25 milesPH. Booter 60 mph. So, it’s it’s not as blisteringly quick as the Ionic 5, but frankly, for most people, that is more than enough power. And then once you’re at speed, we’re cruising at 50 cuz we got traffic. It’s pretty peaceful to be honest, isn’t it? There must be a lot of sound deadening in this car because when you take the engine noise away, it makes you realize how much other noise there is. So, uh, that can be a bad thing. It’s going to be interesting to see how we go as we make our way to Scotland. We’re going home tonight. Uh and then um we’re going to get on our way in the morning. So, I’m going to try and get it charged up to 100% if I can. I just need to turn off the um auto steering because that is um not my favorite feature. Lane departure. It’s just annoying tech. And that’s it. Every time I start a journey in this car, I have to mute the speed limit system cuz it’s always wrong. It went wrong within seconds of me leaving home this morning. Uh and uh you have to turn off the lane departure which comes back on. Both of which are required by legislation, the stupidest legislation in the world. If you’re fitting safety systems that people immediately want to turn off, uh that suggests they’re no good. And uh they’re really not. It’s the next day. It’s 8:23 in the morning. We’ve got 370 mi to cover today in the Hyundai Insta. So, which is having acorns thrown at it at the moment. Maybe we’ll get moving. Uh, let’s see what the stats are before we start. So, I can’t see this, but you can see we got the infrared eye scanners there. So, that’s scanning my eyes as I go down the road. If I’m not paying attention, it beeps to let me know. quite annoying, but quite surprising how often that kicks in when you’re looking at, you know, the infotainment or something of that ilk. So, uh, there we go. 227 mi of range, it reckons, cuz I’ve turned the, um, heater off. That’s going to cost me 5 miles. We’re starting on 3334 miles. So, uh, I’m going to work out how to reset the trip. And, uh, then we can, well, actually, I can just leave it, can’t I? Cuz after charging, we’ll see how far we get. It’ll it’ll tell me that way. But that is our starting conditions. So you can place your bets now as to whether you think uh the limiting factor here is going to be the range of the car or my bladder. I’ve got my water so I can stay hydrated. Going to forgo my morning cup of tea. Uh because as much as I love tea, it it’s not all that compatible with life on the road, I find. But uh I’m going to drive gently. I’m going to keep the heater on. Uh I’m I’m kind of going to drive it like a normal car and uh we’ll see what range we can get. Uh uh it’s already showing 218 mi of range, but our consumption just purering about the local hills is 2.4 m per kilowatt hour at the moment. That should even out uh as we get down the road. Uh might need my sunglasses. Who’d have thought it? But uh here we go. 370 mi to go. So, this is an Insta O2 with the tech pack. Uh I’ll have to run through the um specs and try and work out exactly what that covers, but it means we’ve got all the toys. Heated steering wheel, heated seats, uh the digital climate, uh the satnav, uh pretty much everything you could want in a car, it is here. And uh I I shall put the retail price up as well. Not that many people will walk into a dealer and pay cash, but it’s uh good to know these things. Of course, that’s perhaps the biggest difference. I tested the uh very early 1998 Citroen Belingo Electric recently. That was twice the price of a diesel belingo at the time. And uh even when I first started getting into EV back in 2013, it was still probably a good 2/3 uh the price of um you know more than a normal car. So you still had to pay a premium. These days the difference is definitely getting smaller. Although I think we’re now awaiting the leap to solid state batteries already being made uh by some companies and uh that will change the fortunes of the EVs even more. But this topsp spec model has a 49 kWh battery pack. Uh so uh you can work that out for yourself. If we average even just four uh miles per kilowatt hour, let’s just get out ahead of this bus. Uh we’re still going to do 200 miles on a fill, so to speak. And uh I’m hoping we’re going to do better than that. We achieved 5.1 yesterday, 4.6 coming back home cuz I think there was a headwind which played its part. I also took a slightly different route. Uh of course, I’m remembering that the regen is much less effective when your battery is full. Uh because it literally cannot put the um the amps into the battery quickly enough. Uh it’s much harder to fill the last 10% of battery, which is why generally you don’t charge beyond um 80 85% ideally. Uh I think we’re going to have to max it out, which means your charging time takes longer. That last 10 or 15% is at a slower rate just because the battery is reaching capacity. I just stopped here in San Garig to visit the post office and deposit some rustful takings. Oh, weather is pouring down with rain, but sunny, so that’s good. Let’s see what our stats are. Ding. Uh, so there we go. It’s taken an hour and a half to do just 46 miles. It’s been slow going. We were behind a lorry down the coast road. There’s just nothing you can do. Uh, still got 177 miles of range. Um, we’ve been averaging 4 m per kilowatt hour, which is enough if you ran the battery completely flat to about 190 odd miles. Uh, but we’re not going to do that. We’re going to keep heading north. Now, we’ve got some issues because the M6 is currently closed um around um Kirby Lonsdale. We’ve got to go the full length of the M6. Uh well, not the full length because we’re joining around Chester. Um well, Manchester, rather. Uh but uh yeah, the M6 is closed. That’s our main route north. So, we may have to divert, but that’s going to be after our change. I think we’ve got enough electricity to get us to at least Preston. Uh so, um we can make a decision before we head north. It’s up in Cumbria where the problem is, where it’s absolutely beautiful. I love that stretch. I will be very sad if I can’t do that stretch of the M6. But uh not to do but push on. Oh, and uh I will be doing a bit more of a review and walk around, see what the rear seats are like uh when we get to our stop. One quick thing I will point out, the sun visors that that’s pointless. It swivels round, but uh all this is left open. So I was having the sun directing my eyes earlier. That was less than fun. But I’ve got a funky little light up there and a mirror so I can admire myself. Make sure I look my best for the videos. Bladder has given in and uh we’re still um over 200 mi away. So I’m going to put some electricity in anyway. We’re going to have to charge twice on this journey. Let’s just have a quick look at our stats. We’re 127 mi in. We still got 89 miles of range. Uh and uh we’ve been driving for 3 hours 16. Got the economy up to 4.4. So quite pleased with that. So nice and simple. Just use your payment card and uh it’s now connecting to the vehicle. We just make sure it gets underway uh before we um leave it. Uh I didn’t check the prices. We we’ll see what it is. Um I don’t think grid server particularly cheap. Uh they took over the electric highway from EOT electricity. And uh still connecting. Come on. I really need a toilet. It’s getting quite bad now. Still connecting. But uh yeah, there’s so many charges here now. But so many EVs as well. Of course, the number of EVs has gone up constantly as the number of charges has gone up. So uh we’re still waiting. I might just have to leave it and go cuz my bladder is that bad. I left it too long. I should have stopped earlier. I’m just going to leave it and we’ll hope. Right back. Oh, still not working. Oh well, we’ll give up on that then, shall we? A lot of rubbish. didn’t get any juice in during that stop, but I really have just gone to the toilet. So, I have to put both the covers back in. There we go. So, we’ll consider that a waste of time. Oh, that’s unlock the car. Right. So, let’s just remind ourselves uh where we are. So, 42% 89 miles. I’m going to push on and go for the one stop and that’ll be about lunchtime. Right, that that was all a bit of a nonsense then, but uh at least it means I can get on my way. This is earlier than I wanted to stop uh motor M6 motorway that way. But one issue I have got, I haven’t got the um wireless Android Auto working yet. It only works when I plug my phone into the car. And uh the problem with doing that is I then can’t plug the microphone in to talk to you. So, that’s a bit of a nonsense, but I have to say this is just lovely to cover miles in. It’s a small car with torque. It’s what I’ve always dreamt of. Um, although what what you beeping at me now for? Oh, cuz I haven’t turned the lane departure off. Press and hold. There we go. Absolute rubbish. Stupid technology. I better turn the um speed limit off. That has been catastrophically wrong on a number of occasions. I don’t know where it’s seen the sign. Sometimes it’s not maps cuz I’ve had Google Maps running and uh that’s showing the correct speed limit. Uh the car has seen a sign somewhere maybe for a side road or road work signs have been left out uh and it’s terrifyingly wrong. And there are cars on the market that will adhere to what the car thinks is the speed, but the technology is not there. and the people looking after signs aren’t u making sure they obey whatever rules should be in place. So, uh it’s a catastrophe really. How are you meant to know? But uh yeah, 129 miles now and we still got 88 mi of range. Uh that strikes me as um eminently decent. The range is going to be less than it predicted, but then we were never going to do 219 mi and then charge it up cuz that would be running it to zero. We don’t want to do that. We’re at 41%. Um, want to be somewhere between 15 and 20 when we stop really, but I’m going to re-engage the cruise if I can. Remember, I’d turn it on. There we go. And it’s adaptive cruise as well. So, uh, you just have with electric, you don’t hear it slowing down. So, you have to be a bit mindful. But one thing I like is that, uh, if you indicate right, it will start accelerating. So, you’re building your speed up before you need to. I’ve got bloody lane following turned on. Go away. I have actually tried using the lane following. It’s where it automatically steers basically, but it’s it’s just weird. You’re just like sharing responsibility. Neither of you fully in charge of it. I I’m not comfortable with it. You know, I’m driving along. The car’s steering. The car’s controlling the speed, even allowing for traffic. I’m What am I actually doing here? Not driving the car, it feels like. But, uh, yeah, I’m quite happy to steer in my own lane. I’ve been doing it for quite a long time now. I’m pretty good at staying in my lane. Well, it hasn’t gone wrong, but uh, I probably should have stopped. It pinged on at 20% battery just before Charuck Richard’s services up here in Lanasher, but I I just wanted to go a bit further. So, we have uh we’re now at Preston. We’ve covered 176 miles. I got 26 mi of range, but the battery is down to 14%. So, oh yes, I know it’s low battery. So, there we go. Let’s call it 177 miles. took four hours and we average 4.3 miles per kilowatt hour. So, we’ve got 25 miles of range left, but we’re on 14%. It’s getting quite unhappy. So, um let’s plug in. Oh, that’s helpful. So, there are four chargers and uh this one’s unavailable. Marvelous. I guess I’ll take that out then. No. No, it won’t unlock. Great. I love it when this happens. Oh, so that’s two chargers we’ve connected to so far, and neither of them have worked. That That’s um not ideal, is it? So, I’m going to have to go back onto the Electroverse app and try and find another one, cuz these don’t look like they’re going anytime soon. On my way to an InstaV, um I spotted this uh BP pulse charger um here at the Sherwood. And uh if this actually works, and it is. There we go. Batter is at 12%. So, that came quite low. It’s 85 p per kilowatt, but uh I’m going to go and grab some lunch and uh we’ll see how it does. Uh I haven’t got the app, so I can’t keep an eye on it, which is a bit of a pain, but uh nonetheless, um go get some food cuz I am absolutely starving. Apparently, there’s a school just over there, hence all the noise. And uh yeah, we’ll put some um energy in the old motor. So, it’s going to take an hour and 41 to fully charge the battery, but it’s already up to 13%. Um, I’ll I’ll just take whatever it’s got, except that we’re going to stop again at some point. But, I’m going to get some food and then we can do a review of the little Hyundai Insta. Well, I have to say that was a lot more pleasant than the services. Lovely clean toilets, not too busy in there, and uh some very delicious food. either the um chicken hiros uh the Greek dish uh or chicken jarros as the last called them which I think is actually cuter. But uh should we see what we’re on and what has been how much electricity it’s managed to suck in the time we’ve been in there. So what was it 12% when we started? That was about an hour ago. Oh there we go. 57 minutes and it’s now on 73%. Uh so 31 kilwatt hours supplied which has cost £26.95 because this is a very expensive charger. So uh effectively it’s probably cost me using this charger about 30 quid to get up here to Preston. Uh so what was that? 180 mi. Uh sums can happen over here and we’ll see whether that’s actually good or not and try and work out an MPG equivalent. Uh, so, um, I will attempt to do that in edit cuz I’m hopeless otherwise. But, uh, before we go, I’ll leave that charging for now. I might as well. Uh, I just want to show you the back of the Insta. Uh, because if I open her up. Oh, sorry. Absolute carnage. Of course, it is. My coat that got soaked yesterday. Look at the leg room. So, this is behind me. And, uh, there’s an insane amount of space. Really, really impressive. It’s starting to absolutely pour down. I should have disconnected. Now, the seat does move, so I can give myself less space. So, if I ram my knees into there, let’s see what that does for the actual boot space. Uh, just down here. Yeah, that that makes quite the difference. That that should actually be attached to that, but apparently comes off if you tip it that far. Uh, but otherwise, the boot is pretty tiny. There is an area under there for your cables, but as you can see, I can’t be bothered to put the cables away properly. So, uh, there we are. We’ll close that. And, uh, we can, um, slide that seat back again. I suppose we could just have a look to see, uh, what it looks like folded. And it sort of pulls the boot floor with it, um, as it does that, weirdly. And the passenger seat also folds down. So, that’s good. And we got things to tie to as well. U have to lift it, release it to get it back up again. And uh then the seat belt wedges in cuz I didn’t put it in the thing I should have done. Professional. Oh yes, I must do something about this. Clean that off so I can actually see what’s behind me. Remember the AKA E Nero? There’s someone who makes replacements for these covers that have a little brush on the end. But what the brush does to that, I don’t know. But that should improve matters nonetheless. Let’s just have a look at this passenger seat. Uh, if I pop my bag onto the floor for a minute. So, can we fold this down? Oh. Ow. Oh, yes. It just mildly attacks you in the face. And I think you can get accessories to attach here and uh to those plus points on the doors as well. And it looks like the covers can be zipped off for cleaning as well. Essential if you’ve got a family. Let’s just move that a bit more reclined. There we go. Uh, all good. I love the fact this area gently glows. So, we got um two 12 volts. There’s a type-C there and a standard USB. And that’s a connector for that as well. 12vt power outlet in the traditional sense should you need it. And the big news is, look, we’ve actually got a plug-in charger down here as well. So, this is a full 13 amp output V2L they call it. Vehicle to load. I think the Ionic 5 also had one of those and I failed to find it um on the outside of the car, but this has one inside. It says do not use a kettle or iron. It’s dangerous. So, there we are. Right. I think I’ve probably spent enough here. That’s going to get us a good way down the road. So, we’ll stop. We’ll stop. We’ll stop. Yes, please. There we go. And uh that should now be released. The car will lock it to itself when it’s charging. So that goes back in there. Uh that goes in there. That goes in there. Other way round. That one in first. There we go. I like this being at the front cuz you can sit there and watch the charger. But obviously the downside is that uh that’s very prone to get accident damage. You would have thought. But anyway, we need to get moving. Let’s go. I’ll just have a quick squeeze. Let’s see how far we’ve got left. But let’s see what the predicted range is now. And the motorway is still closed, by the way. 174 miles. Let’s just find out how far we got to go. Yeah, we’ve still got 4 hours and 186 miles to go. So, we’re on 174 miles. we are going to have to charge again. But this is kind of how you do it. I can do it with a shorter stop. I don’t have to stop for an hour or more to charge it all the way to 100%. When I was first doing EV road trips, the first of those in 2014 in a Nissan ENV200 with a 60 mile range, you had no choice but to just sit there and wait and wait and wait for it to get up to 100% cuz you needed all of the range. Uh, this is a bit more convenient, but I think still realistically you should probably say that the Hyundai Insta 49 kWh has a realistic range of 160 170 mi. Uh, so you’re not taking that from 100% like we did this morning. Uh, and you’re not running the battery completely flat. So you can comfortably do 150 mi without really having to think about it. But, uh, going to get you in the mount, get set up, and get back on my way. Here we go again. Next wave. It’s just this constantly. I’m going to put my lights on cuz that puts my rear lights on. The auto lights don’t pick up, but rear lights are needed even though the wipers are going like the clappers. And then it eases off again. It’s a short sharp burst continuously. Uh unfortunately we have now caught the traffic. We’ve just passed where the M6 is closed and uh I don’t believe this is the official diversion route, but naturally lots of people are unofficially diverting uh through Kendall. It’s a really bad one. The truck’s gone over, caught fire. Uh so the road has melted, so they’ve got to resurface the road. Uh this happened probably 10, 11 hours ago. driver. Thankfully, minor injuries, but uh the cleanup is going to take a while. There go far we go. Wonder if they were involved. Uh this got rustic very quick. We’re all hoping someone’s not coming the other way. Oh, someone is coming the other way. Oh, no. You’re going to be there all day cuz this is just an endless street. Lovely vi right ahead of me and the mountains. It’s all very pretty. All very Cumbria. Feels like we’re driving through someone’s garden. Apparently, we’re still on the road. Well, after some time, we’ve reached the uh scene of the accident. The road is coming right close to um where it is, but I think we’re going to be up above it. So, very glad the driver has apparently survived with only minor injuries, but it it’s all down here. As you can see, a resurfacing vehicle there. So, this is exactly where the problem is. Just down there, but we’re having to divert around, but we should soon be able to get back on the M6. We’re not far from the next junction. But the landscape around here is just truly beautiful. I can’t really give you a good angle from there. I try to speed you around a bit out the front now. It’s telling me off cuz I’m not looking forward enough. We’ve made it to Scotland. The sky is looking threatening. And I just pulled up to use this um Apple Green charger. rubbish. Doesn’t work. Uh it’s saying um scan card and then not accepting a card. So that’s great. Third charger of the day. Uh so we’re giving up on that one as well. Uh we’ll go and try one of the uh other ones, but this is getting a bit tiring. Um so much infrastructure is just so I saw someone else um changing charger as well. Uh there are actually three here. I don’t know if you can use the Tesla ones here. Some Tesla chargers. Sorry, I’m not filming this very well. These plugs are a right pain to get in. There we go. Going to try another charger. But uh yeah, the um the Tesla chargers in some places are open, but uh they got some um electric highway ones, so I’m going to try those. Well, it only took a few minutes and it started raining, so I just jumped in the car cuz I can do it all on the app, so I haven’t got to be out there once I’ve done that. Uh so we’re down at 28% 53 miles. Uh it’s going to take an hour and a half to charge to fully. We’re not going to do that. Uh I’m literally going to stop for a bit of a break uh and a toilet break again. I’ve reached the end of my bladder again. We’ve done about 100 miles since the last stop. It’s not very far, but I’m feeling very tired. My bladder has given up already. Obviously, keeping too hydrated. So, um I’ll go and have a break and we’ll get on our way again. Feeling absolutely shattered. That’s been a long day. Uh it’s um find out what time it is. Uh it is 20 past 4 in the afternoon now. Uh so I don’t need to run the air con. I think I’ll be all right. Uh it’s absolutely freezing up here. It says 15°, but it it feels much colder out there. Is it cuz it’s the north? But uh yeah, I’ve just been relieved of another 2.55 for that. Cheers, Starbucks. Uh it’s an iced tea. It’s actually really tasty. I don’t think it’s got anything bad in it, but one of the ingredients is natural flavorings. No further description of what the natural flavorings are. Water, white grape juice, peach juice, natural flavorings. Whether that’s the tea bit, I don’t know. Don’t really taste very much of tea. No, no, it lists tea extract. So, God knows what natural flavorings is, but uh it doesn’t taste like all the um fake Sweden stuff, which just tastes revolting. So, uh, I’m going for it just for a bit different. I didn’t fancy sitting in for a cup of tea. Uh, so, uh, I’m just going to sit here and drink this. Cheers. I can’t seem to get wireless, uh, Android Auto to work. So, because I haven’t connected via a cable, it just goes, “No, uh, use a cable.” But that’s rubbish. I don’t want to do that. I know my circumstances are a little unique, but I also don’t like leaving my phone plugged into a charger constantly. It’s not very good for the phone battery. So, a bit annoying. There’s all various modes here. I don’t know what this one is. Um, I can guess what phone is as a quiet mode. Valet mode. Presumably that does that restrict the power or something? Uh, climate control. So, it’s got auto dehumidify and auto defog. And, uh, this is a fun one. Uh, when you wash the windscreen, it puts it into recirculate mode so you don’t get the smell of screen wash coming in. So, after a couple of minutes, it’ll go back to fresh air in. That’s quite a fun feature, I think. Uh, let’s actually just put it on. And, uh, there we go. Outside 14°, it reckons. And it’s decided that what we need most at the moment is the faithful of air. That is quite nice to be fair. Uh, so good that you can run that while charging. uh if you actually want to sit in your car while you charge. Not everyone does. I think quite a lot of people are sort of checking them on a charger, going for a cup of tea, and then coming back. And uh in the time they’ve had a cup of tea, they’ve put a useful amount of power in. Uh so uh we’ve put 21 kW in so far and uh it’s taken 31 minutes to do. So I must confess I’ve had a bit of a lie down and a bit of a nap. Uh, am I officially old now? Yes. Yes, I officially am. I mean, look at the gray hair. Last time I was up this way in an electric car, it was a Jaguar IPA six years ago. I think there’s a lorry just reversed into some trees over there. Brilliant. Uh, and uh, yeah, I had very different hair. Uh, it was all was it shorter? I don’t know. Was it still long? I can’t even remember. But I borrowed it from SMG Barrett and it was a very frustrating journey. And uh sadly this journey has been a bit frustrating as well. It’s still just not as easy as a petrol car. And for all the e EV folks saying, “Oh, well, you just got to plan your journey and work out which charges to use.” No, I don’t have to do that with a petrol car. I mean, granted, I will sometimes um use the map to find a cheaper petrol station, so I’m not having to pay motorway prices cuz why would you? But it’s interesting that motorway prices. Uh how much is this one? This one’s 85p per kowatth hour. Uh are still a bit more expensive than chargers off the motorway where it’s more like 65 maybe 74p an InstaVolt. Not I’ve managed to use one of those yet. Haven’t even been near one. But uh I’ve got 80 mi to go and I’ve got 136 mi of range. So I think we’re getting to the stage I’m just going to say enough’s enough and push on so I can have a rest before what is probably going to be a very busy filming day tomorrow. potentially got three vehicles. I don’t know if any of these are going to come to pass. It’s going to make it interesting trying to do my research tonight. Um I might just do a little bit of research now just while I’m here cuz if I drive straight to where I’m staying, I can’t charge it. So, I’m not putting any juice in. And uh we’ll see how we go. Of course, you can amuse yourself by reading the manual. Uh it’s quite chunky. That is all English. Uh and uh it’s actually quite good. Quite a good manual. uh some useful stuff in it. The um the index takes some getting used to, but yeah, I mean there’s an awful lot in there. And there’s a separate one for the navigation, although this mostly is a link telling you to go to um their store and download it. I think there is not actually very much information in there at all. So, uh, that one less useful, but this one’s nice and it’s got some interesting diagrams variously as well. If I see if I find some like don’t crash your Insta, but at least it’s got airbags if you do. I’m going to try not to crash it. I I there are limits to what I’m prepared to do to test the vehicle, but we’re at 78%. I think for old time sake, 2 minutes left to get to 80%. We might as well let it do that. and then um off to Edinburgh. So now going along the A71 uh which is the scenic drive uh across to Edinburgh which is on the other side of Scotland. Uh so you can go up to Glasgow and then go across. Uh that’s not quite so scenic. Uh but I don’t think I’ve ever traveled on this road before. But uh look at this. This is um 20 to 6:00 in the evening. So this is rush hour. Just imagine the chaos in the towns and cities of um the UK and there is no one here. I imagine in the summer months this route must be awful. Packed full of camper vans and caravans. But uh this is just crazy. I haven’t come up to another car in um so far about 10 miles. It’s bliss. It’s even stopped raining. which I can scarcely believe. But we are averaging only 3.3 miles per kilowatt hour. It seems like we’ve been climbing since leaving the motorway services. So, uh, yeah, economy is not great. This isn’t so bad. This is fast and flowy, but we’ve had some sections where you’re kind of accelerating and decelerating, and the regen doesn’t make up the acceleration to get back up to the speed again. But I am feeling quite tired at this point. It’s like I say, it’s it’s almost 6:00. We’ve been on the road since 8 and uh we’ve covered over 320 miles so far. Sorry, no, 3 Oh, I can’t even count. Yeah, 325 miles. I think we’ve done so far. Long day, folks. Last time I was up this way was when I uh swapped Vixella the Verra for the Rover 75, the Copper Leaf one. And uh that involved driving up, staying the night, and then um driving back home again the next day. But that was also quite tiring. But this is so smooth. And with the cruise control, it’s got the adaptive cruise control as well. I think that’s the problem. I think when you turn that on, it turns on the keep in lane feature, which is irritating as hell. I hate it. I don’t know if the lower spec ones have that. I’d be interested to know, but oh, it’s just awful. There are so many things. If I could just hack into it with um some form of programming, I would turn off delay departure. I turn off the stupid keep in lane thing and I would turn off the speed limit alert. The speed limit alert could be so good, but it’s so often wrong. It’s uh frankly dangerous to have something that awful legislated as compulsory. Ridiculous. I do something about this headrest as well. I really want to stretch my neck back and I just can’t. Uh I don’t like that. I keep on touching the head restraint. I don’t like it. That is not a problem unique to this car. It is modern cars. It must be crash regs. Uh must obviously be in the case of a rear ender. Your head’s got less far to travel, so that’s better. But I don’t like it. I do like this scenery though. And here we are. We are in Edinburgh. Well, we’re on the outskirts. You can tell it’s Edinburgh because you’re surrounded by houses. Uh but then there’s a great lump of rock in the background as well. So the city is that away. Not sure we’re going to have time to explore, but uh very very happy with the Hyundai Insta. We’ve done like 370 mi today, just shy, I think 368, and it’s been awesome. It’s just eats up the miles so well in a way small cars usually don’t. Uh it’s just a shame about some of the nagging technology really. But I’m going to wrap this one up there. So that was the story. It’s the most miles I’ve ever done in an electric car in a day. It’s beaten my previous record of 350. That was some time ago in the e Golf where I took to Angles from where I was living in Devil’s Bridge, but I had to go into England to find enough charges to be able to do it. This time I’ve been able to find charges along my route no problem. It is a lot better. And the fact that you don’t need apps and things, you can just boop your your card and pay. It’s not the cheapest, but it is possible and uh I can see why people fall in love with the electric experience. It’s just so relaxing. So, there will be more um on the journey back at some point, but uh like I say, I’m going to wrap that one up there. That was the story of getting this little car from Wales to Edinburgh. Very, very pleasing. I’m going to go and find where I’m staying tonight and then crash out cuz it’s been a very long day. Uh huge thanks for watching and uh see you in a future video. Farewell.
My longest EV trip in one day so far! 370 miles in the (allegedly) 238-mile Hyundai Inster 49kWh electric car. Horrible weather, diversions, broken chargers and unexpected stops! Due to me rather than the car…
I also show you around this remarkable smaller EV showing the good AND the bad.
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