The journey is on: Epic Pole to Pole electric vehicle expedition begins

British couple start world-first adventure in their electric Nissan Ariya

Surrounded by the vast ice-covered Arctic Ocean, EV adventurers Chris and Julie Ramsey have started their highly anticipated Pole to Pole expedition. Following a comprehensive safety assessment, the team set out from the 1823 North Magnetic Pole*. Their journey ahead will see them drive south, covering more than 27,000 km through North, Central and South America, aiming ultimately to reach the world’s most remote place, Antarctica’s South Pole, in December.

No vehicle has ever completed the journey between these extremes of the globe and the Pole to Pole team are undertaking the challenge in a 100% electric vehicle. Chris and Julie have embarked on the journey to showcase just how capable and exciting electric vehicles are, with the hope to accelerate their adoption as a positive action against the climate crisis.

The expedition-ready Nissan Ariya has undergone some minor modifications to help it cope with the extreme terrains that the team are set to face along their route. Most notably the suspension has been lifted and wheel arches extended to accommodate huge 39-inch tires that will help the car ‘float’ on deep snow and sea ice. No modifications were made to the Ariya’s battery and powertrain, which remain standard, or the e-4ORCE system, Nissan’s advanced electric all-wheel-control technology.

As the couple travels through the remote polar regions, they will tow an innovative renewable energy unit, which includes an extendable wind turbine and foldable solar panels. The prototype will take advantage of the expected high winds and long daylight hours, harnessing the natural energy to charge the Ariya’s battery, whilst Chris and Julie take well-earned breaks from driving in the challenging environment. The team hope the charging innovation can have a positive legacy by inspiring a transition to electric vehicles for future polar exploration.

“After four years of planning and hard work, we’re so excited to officially get Pole to Pole underway,” Chris commented from the start. “Julie and I have done several EV adventures over the past 10 years but Pole to Pole is definitely our biggest and most exciting challenge. We’ve had to think differently, be innovative and collaborate with like-minded partners to make this expedition a reality. Our expedition Ariya is fun to drive and performed well over the 5,000 km journey to get to this starting point. It gives us the confidence we can tackle every driving scenario we’ll face in the coming months.” Julie added, “We’re excited to share our adventure with you and shine a light on the amazing people, communities and projects along the way that is making a positive difference to the climate crisis. We’d love for everyone to be part of Pole to Pole, so please follow and get involved in the adventure on our social channels.”

*Coordinates: N70 38' 37.820", W98 28' 0.541"

Discover more about Pole to Pole driven by Nissan, here.

 

[Matski]

Panamerican Highway road trip with a boat from Punta Arenas then... sounds pretty epic.

edit: Hmm, seems they're starting in Nunavut, so down the middle to Winnipeg, then down the middle of the USA to pick up the Panamerican Highway at San Antonio, with a boat to get around the Darien gap.. then a boat from Punta Arenas...

edit 2: So, from the 1823 North Pole to the furthest north road in Canada that's roughly on line, and connects with the rest of Canada's road network (which Nunavut apparently doesn't) means ~1600 km of Artic off-roading as the crow flies (so likely much more)... to get to a road. From there, it's 1000km to Winnipeg, and 100km to the US Border.

To the Mexican border at the bottom of Texas is then 2800km. 4300km later, you've gone as far as you can on contiguous roads and you're in the jungle... so in all likely hood you've already got on a boat to Colombia (One expedition did manage to get a car through the Darien gap, but it took 721 days).

Assuming you've got a boat into Turbo on Colombia's Caribbean coast, it's then 10,000km to Punta Arenas or Ushuaia at the bottom of Chile or Argentina respectively. Then it's between between 1500 and 3000km across Antarctica to reach the south pole, depending on where they land.

So that's about 22,000km of driving taking the most direct route possible.

Google reckons the on road portion of that equates to 240 hours of driving. I don't doubt the trek from the start point to a road, and the trek from the Antarctic coast to the pole will be immensely time consuming, but under normal road trip circumstances you'd be driving for about 9 hours a day, and so, call it a month. This journey is planned to take 8-9 months... you do have to wonder how much time is going to spent charging.

... but still very much epic.

Cape town to the North Cape of Norway is about 18,000km by road. Not sure what you'd do east-west, but it would likely be very more tricky to not get killed.