While there is not usually a shortage of electric vehicle news to go around, it isn’t often that there is a truly remarkable story to share. A story that shows what humanity can do with an electric vehicle and pushes it to the very limit to show us just how far a little hard work and ingenuity can bring us. One such story is the one that follows Racing Green Endurance and their electric vehicle marathon that spanned North and South America in order to show the remarkable potential of zero carbon emission electric vehicles in our world today.
Racing Green Endurance began in the August of 2009 when eleven students and staff members from the Imperial College London decided to drive a racing electric vehicle the entire distance of the Pan-American Highway. The car in question is SRZero Electric Sports Car from Radical, a British racing car company. The SRZero has an impressive top speed of around 125 miles per hour, with the ability to go zero to sixty in seven seconds, and an estimated range of around 250 miles before absolutely needing to be recharged. The incredible distance is managed by the way the car is able to transfer energy gathered during breaking into electricity for use in the lithium ion batteries that power the car. Essentially, every time the drivers hit the breaks the kinetic energy would be transferred into power that would further extend the range of the vehicle.
Yesterday, the team behind Racing Green Endurance’s electric vehicle arrived in Ushuaia in the Argentinean province of Tierra del Fuego after seventy days of driving. The journey had initially begun nearly 16,000 miles away at the very top of the Pan-American Highway in Fairbanks, Alaska early in July of this year. Along the way, the Racing Green Endurance team passed through fourteen countries before finally reaching their destination. According to the team’s Public Relations Director, Andy Hadlands, Racing Green Endurance hopes that by showing the remarkable potential of electric cars over the course of this massive journey that people around the world will see just how impressive they can be.
The success of the trip is a fairly remarkable story by all accounts and one that is certain to raise eyebrows for electric car enthusiasts and newcomers alike. The fact that such a long trip could be made by a vehicle that is charged solely off electricity and its own kinetic power, all while giving off zero carbon emissions, is truly fascinating. Where Racing Green Endurance will go now with their SRZero is unknown, but it would be interesting to see a trip that spanned the entire world. While one single car can obviously not physically drive the entire globe, the message that could be delivered by making such a trip would more than account for that technicality.
Article by Richard Cooke, appearing courtesy Justmeans.
