Putting electric vehicles on the map with Nissan and Plug In Adventures

The Mongol Rally thunders 10,000 miles across the mountains, desert and steppe of Europe and Asia each summer. There’s no backup, no support and no set route; just you, your fellow adventurists and a tiny car you bought from a scrapyard for £11.50.

Electric vehicle advocate Plug In Adventures have created a specially modified Nissan LEAF that will be the first all-electric car to participate in the race. Dubbed the LEAF AT-EV (All Terrain Electric Vehicle), the vehicle is based on a standard 30kWh Nissan LEAF Acenta, which offers a range of up to 155 miles / 250 km on a single charge.

Plug In Adventures was born from a combined passion for adventure and electric vehicles. Comprising a group of EV enthusiasts based in Scotland, its aim is to engage with the public in unique and different ways, championing all things EV-related. The Mongol Rally is the culmination of a series of EV adventures their founder Chris Ramsey has created for himself as training – all building to this significant and challenging journey.

3 word address charging points

Ramsey plans to make regular stops along the way to promote the benefits of running an all-electric vehicle to residents of the countries he’s passing through. He’ll be using the what3words platform to log the locations of some of the uncharted charging network, so that future EV drivers traversing the region can benefit from accurate charging point locations. The offline functionality of the what3words app makes it the perfect tool for such a trip, with large parts of route in areas with limited or no mobile network coverage.

“This will be our most challenging electric vehicle drive to date, but it’s one we’ve been planning for a number of years” says Chris. “Not only will we face a dwindling number of EV chargers the further east we go, the terrain also becomes more difficult to navigate”.

Gareth Dunsmore, Director of Electric Vehicles, Nissan Europe, said: “Since we launched the LEAF in 2010, our customers have collectively driven over three billion kilometres, saving more than 500 million kilograms of CO2 emissions in the process.

“Few Nissan LEAF owners have been more vocal or accomplished as Plug In Adventures at demonstrating that electric vehicles can do so much more than the daily commute. We applaud this ambitious driving challenge and wish them a safe and enjoyable journey.”

Follow @Pluginadventure on Twitter or visit their Facebook page to keep up with the final preparations ahead of the race.