Scottish Couple Plan to Drive “From Pole to Pole” in an Electric Vehicle

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

They plan to bring a portable wind turbine to charge the vehicle when sunlight is unavailable.

Climate change: Couple set for Pole-to-Pole electric car challenge

Ben Philip – BBC Scotland
Mon, 20 March 2023 at 10:07 am AEST·

A husband and wife from Aberdeen aim to drive from the Arctic to Antarctica in an electric car.

Chris and Julie Ramsey will set off to travel 17,000 miles (27,000km) from the Magnetic North to South Pole this week.

Their vehicle will be powered for much of the trip by solar and wind energy.

The couple will navigate into Canada, then head south through the United States and into warmer temperatures in South America over the space of 10 challenging months.

They will travel through Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

…

“There will be a wind turbine and full double solar on this device which will be towed along, harnessing the renewable energy sources – the wind and the sun – to power the car.

…Read more: https://au.news.yahoo.com/climate-change-couple-set-pole-000736611.html

Recharging time might be an issue. They used a Nissan Leaf on at least one previous drive. A portable wind turbine produces maybe a few hundred watts, maybe a kilowatt for a larger device, but a Nissan Leaf with the big battery has around 59KWh capacity. Even a partial charge would take a long time.

Apparently this isn’t their first long distance EV drive, so they probably know what kind of route they need to map, and have a fair idea of charge times. Perhaps taking their time is not a problem – it’s not like a daily commute or business trip. In any case, as EV owners they are probably already used to taking long breaks while their vehicle re-charges.