16,000km, 20 countries, 56 days
One Electric Car
For many, The Long Way Up will be their first exposure to electric cars being pushed to their limits, covering long distances in incredibly challenging conditions.
While Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s adventure certainly makes for compelling viewing, it is clear that they are new to electric vehicles and learning as they go, while the bikes and cars they have chosen to use on the trip are pre-production versions where the technology wasn’t fully refined in time for their mammoth journey.
There are, however, people who have already made a name for themselves by breaking boundaries in the name of showing just what electric vehicles are capable of, pushing themselves and the technology to the limit.
Plug In Adventures
In 2017, Chris Ramsey and his wife, Julie, set out on an unusual journey in their fully-electric Nissan Leaf. Starting at the Goodwood racing circuit, they would spend the next 56 days covering more than 16,000km (10,000 miles) and traversing 20 countries as part of the Mongol Rally.
The Mongol Rally is an inter-continental driving event that was started in 2004 in order to allow ordinary people to experience a unique adventure. Participants may only use a car with a 1 litre engine (or less), must not have any support from a team, and must raise a minimum of £500 (€543) for charity.
Chris and Julie would, in fact, be the first people to compete in the Mongol Rally in an electric car, and during the adventure became the first people ever to drive an EV through both Kazakhstan and Mongolia along the way.
Speaking to IrishEVs, Ramsey said: “The more and more I understood the true capabilities of an EV and how simple it really was to charge in various, and sometimes unusual scenarios, I realised that could combine my desire to enter the Mongol Rally which my passion to education the public about electric cars and the real facts about driving and ownership.”
“The lack of charging infrastructure, range anxiety and not being able to drive long distances were all reason still being given back then by people for not buying an electric car. So I set about signing up to the rally and planned, mapped and organised the entire project in under 4 months.”
The car
The Plug In Adventures car was almost identical to a standard Nissan Leaf that you might see on the streets of Ireland.
Only a few technical tweaks, such as welding plates to the underside of the car to protect the suspension when off-roading, a raised ride height and a light bar for better visibility driving in rural areas at night, were made to the vehicle.
Otherwise, the 30kW battery and motor – and even the floor mats – that Chris and Julie used to drive to Siberia were the standard ones that you’re likely to see in your local supermarket car park.
During their adventure, the husband and wife team charged their vehicle a total of 111 times at a total cost of less than €109 (£100).
Speaking about the experiences they had along the way, Ramsey told us: “Europe has an extensive rapid charger network that can provide an 80% battery charge in just 30 minutes, and we made good use of this to get ourselves to Turkey, hassle free. From there on in, it was about plugging into domestic 2-pin wall sockets as we were travelling through countries that didn’t even sell electric cars, let alone have chargers for them.”
“However, this gave us the perfect opportunity to highlight the general, everyday commute, charging behaviour that you adopt when owning an electric car: You drive to your place of work and back, and once home you plug your car into your charge point or plug socket, and it charges while you relax. The only different for us, was that our home on the rally was swapped for cafes, hotels, a tractor showroom, police stations, fire stations in Russia. We even had a trained electrician plug our Nissan Leaf directly into an electricity pylon in the middle of the forest in Siberia. “
“I really want people to understand that the barrier to going electric, isn’t the cars or the infrastructure. It is us, our minds and reluctance for change. Technology moves on, so lets embrace it. It is ready for us, so lets be ready for it.”
The car now resides in The Grampian Transport Museum, having been donated after completing the mammoth journey and raising £1000 for WWF Scotland and £500 for Cool Earth in South America.
The lesson
What can be learned from the Plug In Adventures team?
Perhaps the greatest lesson is that range anxiety in electric vehicles is a myth – no matter how many times people continue to trot it out as an excuse for not driving a sustainable, zero-emissions vehicle.
If an electric vehicle can cover 16,000km in 56 days in countries where there is absolutely no public charging network, then it demonstrates that using a battery electric car in Ireland is no issue at all – particularly when the average journey in Ireland is just 14.6km from start to finish.
Our thanks to Chris for agreeing to be interviewed in this article, and for showing just what EVs can do. Check out more about his electric vehicle adventures at pluginadventure.com and give him a Follow on Twitter to find out more about his latest projects.
The Plug In Adventures car undergoing off-road testing before the trip - despite changing the ride height and adding some protection to the underside of the car, their Nissan Leaf used the same technology as the ones you so often see on the streets of Ireland
A recent survey found that 12% of people don’t think you can drive an electric car in the rain - Plug In Adventures not only proved that you can drive one 16,000km in 56 days, but that they are adept at off-road driven, and don’t flinch at driving through deep water
Countries with no charging network require some more creative approaches to charging, it it wasn’t an issue for Chris and Julie
Chris and Julie celebrate at the finish line
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