After a long hybernation I would like to write about our experience of a 1 week holiday with our smaller EV the Hyundai IONIQ in October 2020.The IONIQ only has a range of about 150 miles, but we only live 70 miles from the Lake District near Darlington in County Durham. Why did we take the IONIQ and not our Tesla Model S which has a ihre boot and longer range of about 220 miles.Well we thought we just try it and see.Also the IONIQ is much smaller and not sooo wide, so for the narrow roads in the Lake District it might be better.

Our trip started on the Saturday and we were heading from our home near Darlington on the A688 via Barnard Castle and A66 to the lovely Cumbrian town of Penrith where we filled up the car at a Booth supermarket.There were two Instavolt 50kw chargers and one of them would not work for me at first.None of my credit cards or debit cards were accepted as payments.Not a good start!😤 After talking to the BMW i3 owner that charged his car on the other charger it seemed a problem with Instavolt and not my credit cards.Phew! So I tried a few more RFID charging cards that I accumulated over the years and my virtual ChargePoint card on my iPhone worked in the end and we were charging. (Electric cars need patience!). We are pioneers and I love a challenge! (I contacted Instavolt and they said they would fix the charger and look into my problem.Nonotger Problem ever occurred again the whole time we were in the Lake District charging on Instavolt).

This is why we like the Lake District.Just look at the Autumn colour! You feel you are transported to the Black Forest of Germany but it is sooooo different!

Above picture shows a free Pod-Point charger.You pay for parking, but nothing for electricity.National Park likes you to drive a clean car! This car park is also near Aira Falls and we had a nice walk around there and a cup of tea in the local hotel café!

While Hilary went shopping for our breakfast and tea I made sure that the car got filled up with electrons! No smell and for £10 another 150 Miles!

I think overall the experience with a lower mileage car was very good.I don’t think it matters in the Lake District so much if you have a high or low mileage car – the most important thing is that you have a very agile car that gets round corners well and is not so big. The infrastructure now is good and you can find chargers enough.However you need a bit of pull to get up those steep passes but an IONIQ in Summer,spring and Autumn should be alright.Get winter tyres after 31st of October though as in can be tricky in light snow!