Electric car finishes 13,000km rally on 111 charges
While our enlightened-, environmentally conscious selves cannot help but laud (what we privately think of as the) electric car fad, the realist in each of us keeps a list of reasons why electric cars are impractical. Oh, sure a little electric number is fine if all you want to do is zip around town, with a restricted range between work, the grocery store and (less frequently) mom’s house. In fact, you’d quite like an electric car … but there is that yearly vacation up the coast, with the loaded trunk, harsh gravel ways and hundreds of kilometres of desolate (electric plug-less) road. Ideally, you’d like to keep an electric car for the humdrum, everyday life and a real car for the vacation. But who can afford two cars these days? Well, we’d like to introduce you to Chris and Julie Ramsey; their all-electric Nissan LEAF; and the Mongol Rally.
Let’s assume, for the moment, you’ve never heard of the Mongol Rally. It is a charity drive, starting in Goodwood (UK) and traversing more than a dozen countries (yes, including Mongolia) before ending in Ulan Ude (Russia). There are no prescribed routes as such and participants can go as far south as Italy (or as far north as the Arctic Circle). Depending on the route chosen, the rally can traverse between thirteen- and sixteen thousand kilometres and lasts between three- and four weeks. No support is provided and participants are responsible for their own fuel, accommodation, services and logistics. Only about seventy percent of all entrants complete the rally and not only due to breakdowns. The routes can be quite lawless and traffic accidents as well as robberies have been reported.
The Ramseys (a Scottish couple) and their Nissan LEAF comprise team Plug-in Adventures (a nice wordplay on the IT term plug-and-play and an homage to the Mongol Rally’s reputation as being the “Greatest Adventure in the World”). To be fair, the Ramseys’ LEAF had been modified to better withstand the rough terrain but the all-electric system was left untouched and the engine complies with the Rally rules of being smaller than 1200cc.
Plug-In Adventures embarked on their journey on the 16th of July and crossed the finish line on the 9th of September. In that time, they travelled approximately thirteen thousand kilometres through thirteen countries, charging their LEAF a total of 111 times for an estimated electricity cost of R2000. To do the math, that averages on about one charge lasting for just over a thousand kilometres apiece, at a cost of R18 per charge.
Now who can afford two cars? Or better yet, why would you need a normal car when the LEAF is, quite obviously, more real than a real car?
Off course, the true miracle here is a husband-and-wife team completing a month-and-a-half long road trip without resorting to divorce or mariticide (uxoricide being to difficult to spell). Nevertheless, that does not detract from the achievement of the Nissan LEAF.
