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A New Kind of Off-Grid: Hotel Hyundai Is World’s First Car-Powered Hotel, Still Luxurious

Just because you are keen on more sustainable lifestyle choices doesn’t mean that you have to get accustomed to a less luxurious or pampered existence. Hyundai wants to prove that to you, by opening a pop-up hotel it describes as the world’s first ever hotel entirely powered by an electric vehicle.
Hyundai Hotel is a pop-up staycation experience that is entirely powered by the Ioniq 5 49 photos
Photo: Hyundai
Hyundai Hotel is a pop-up staycation experience that is entirely powered by the Ioniq 5The wooden cabin at the heart of the Hyundai Hotel experienceThe wooden cabin at the heart of the Hyundai Hotel experienceThe wooden cabin at the heart of the Hyundai Hotel experienceThe wooden cabin at the heart of the Hyundai Hotel experience
Hotel Hyundai is a pop-up staycation experience that is car-powered, for what the marque calls a new take on going off-grid. In other words, you can enjoy yourself in the midst of nature without feeling guilty about your carbon footprint, because it will be much smaller than if you’d gone to a conventional hotel.

At the core of this experience is the Ioniq 5 and, of course, the guests themselves. The idea is to provide a new take on the off-grid vacation experience, but with a focus on comfort, which, in turn, means a focus on luxury amenities. Like any regular hotel, Hotel Hyundai will offer sleeping, dining, a bar and coffee lounge, and even on-site entertainment by means of a cinema. You also get access to an expansive area of farmland for walks, visits to the local pub and church, and plenty of options for outdoor activities to keep you busy.

The Hyundai Hotel is a partnership with Hyundai and broadcaster and food critic Grace Dent, who serves as curator. The experience starts with an already existent wooden lodge on Colemans Farm, on the edge of Epping Forest in Sussex, outside of London, UK. The lodge itself, which is described as a high-end boutique cabin, is shown in the gallery above; Hyundai doesn’t offer additional details, but the render included with the announcement makes it look as if they’re adding a pavilion that will serve all the other functions of the hotel, including wining and dining, and entertaining.

The wooden cabin at the heart of the Hyundai Hotel experience
Photo: kiphideaways.com
The big get is that the entire experience will be powered by Ioniq 5 – three of them, by the looks of it. Everything from the lights in the cabin, the shower, the cooking appliances in the restaurant and even the popcorn machine from the cinema (screening room, more like it), will draw on the car’s battery, by means of Hyundai’s Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) technology. V2L supplies AC power (230V/50Hz) up to a maximum of 3.6kW (or 15 Amps) power consumption, while an adapter from the car includes a socket for plugging in standard domestic appliances.

Another big get is that the experience will help the local community. For instance, the three-course meals offered on site will be made with locally-sourced sustainable ingredients, and with local recipes. Both the food and the drinks are curated by Dent, while the Ioniq 5 will be on coffee prepping duties – not in the sense that the car will be making the coffees, but in that the espresso machine in the coffee “lounge” will be powered by the car’s battery.

“I hope this three-week pop-up hotel is just the start for this concept of a car plugging in and powering a luxury experience like this. I’m predicting that guests will be hoping that his amazing hotel and the full experience it offers might be here again in 2023,” Dent says.

According to Hyundai, the idea for this pop-up, car-powered hotel became a reality after research commissioned by the marque revealed a shift in interests in tourists. Speaking strictly figures, the higher costs of living are forcing people to reconsider their vacation plans (55% of respondents), while 44% of respondents are now considering staycations instead of holidays abroad. Staycations are better alternatives for short breaks either way, said 33% of respondents, while 25% motivated this change by citing sustainability, 27% by the desire to support local business, and another 27% by the desire to have a stress-free traveling experience.

That may very well be the case, but this is also an excellent opportunity to get more people – perhaps even people that would not have otherwise given the Ioniq 5 a chance – to see beyond its functionality as a daily driver. This is an excellent take on off-grid staycations and a nice initiative to support local businesses, but it’s also an awesome way for Hyundai to show off the Ioniq 5. Or, as Ashley Andrew, Managing Director of Hyundai Motor UK, says, “the whole experience demonstrates the practicality of this pioneering technology, and we hope the concept inspires more people to go off grid.”

Other EV makers have not had to open up a pop-up hotel to show off, because life threw other opportunities their way and then the Internet did the rest, by means of good old-fashioned word of mouth (or what we call a viral story these days). Case in point, that recent Rivian-powered vasectomy, and the story of a Kia EV6 owner who used the car to power his entire home in Prince Edward Island, Canada for eight days after Hurricane Fiona.

The Hyundai Hotel will be open for 14 nights, from October 19 to November 5, accepting only two guests at a time. There’s a chance to win a free stay, with more details on that in the press release available at the bottom of the page.
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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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