A pair of electric vehicle (EV) enthusiasts have taken full advantage of the UK’s fast growing charging network by taking a free trip from John O’Groats to Land’s End and back in their all-electric Nissan LEAF.
Chris Ramsey and Jonathan Porterfield made the epic, two day, 1,652-mile trip at no cost by utilising some of the 7,000 publicly available charging points that make up the UK network. Powered by renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, the charging stations form part of the European Electrocity’s Electric Highway, and each of the LEAF’s 33 ‘refills’ on the trip took as little as half an hour.
Chris Ramsey, founder of electric vehicle group Plug In Adventures, said: “Being a LEAF owner and knowing its capabilities, the result was never in doubt. The most important thing was demonstrating in a unique and different way that EVs and the existing infrastructure can easily meet the needs of every day drivers."
Jonathan added: “The trip went very smoothly and was a lot of fun. I regularly hear from drivers of diesel and petrol cars that say you can’t drive far in a LEAF, but of course you can and we’ve proved it!"
Robert Tweedie, EV Manager, Nissan Motor GB Ltd said: “What Chris and Jonathan achieved was pretty extreme but it’s yet more proof of the capability, performance and reliability of the Nissan LEAF. Of course most drivers will never undertake a journey like this and the vast majority of owners will only ever need to charge their car once or twice a week to handle their daily commute. There are now free-to-use rapid charge points at 95% of UK service stations and so longer journeys are easily within the range of the LEAF and are much more affordable.”
Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity’s Electric Highway added: “The revolution in electric cars is here and it’s picking up pace. This journey demonstrates the true capabilities of the Electric Highway network, which is already powering over a million miles of emission free travel every month and is growing every day.”
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