O Canada! Land of Maple trees, Maple syrup, and of course, the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, 13 time Stanley Cup champions. It is a vast, sparsely populated country, where the people sing show tunes with their crazy bobbing heads (at least according to South Park). The vastness certainly presents a challenge to anybody trying to cross such a huge country, and that goes doubly so for anyone with the gusto to cross it in an electric vehicle.
Yet that is what a group of students from the University of British Columbia are doing. They left Vancouver last week in their electric 1972 VW Beetle. Now that’s some moxie!
As we all are aware, one of the biggest challenges holding back electric cars are the limited range provided by today’s batteries. The students have managed to eek out about 185 miles per charge from their bug, going 60 mph. If they go just 30 mph, they can go a whooping 340 miles on a charge. Why can’t a major automaker do this?
Probably because a ’72 Beetle has pretty much no electric components. No SatNav, probably no a/c, no booming stereo system, just a car and an electric motor. It takes four hours to charge the battery, which is also quite the accomplishment. It gives me hope for my generation that there are people out there taking this whole electric vehicle thing into their own hands. I’m rooting these kids on and I hope you are too.
Source: Inhabitat via UBC Electric Car Club
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