Given half the chance to drive to Mongolia, most people’s reactions would be to come up with some kind of excuse not to. ‘No, sorry, I’ve got something on that month, would be an expected reply. And that’s if considering a bonafide all wheel drive purpose built machine, certainly not an off-the-shelf Nissan Leaf electric car.
But that’s exactly what Chris Ramsey is doing and not only that, but he’s dragging his wife, Julie, along for the ride too. I say drag, but I have a sneaking suspicion she is equally excited and trepidatious to go on this once in a lifetime adventure. So Chris and his wife aren’t normal. Rather than saying no to this proposition, they’ve instead come up with it all by themselves and the gently modified Leaf you see in these pictures is their own car!
However, there’s a background story here that needs to be gone into a little to learn their mind-set. The reasons why they’re doing this; is it for fun?
Chris has an adventurous background. While most people are satisfied simply driving an EV, right from the start, Chris began Plug-in Adventures – his self-titled ambition to travel by EV. His adventurous spirit has already taken him on a few adventures including a mad cap dash from Scotland to Monaco and back again in a BMW i3, in just 48 hours. To put this into perspective, when he and his co-pilot arrived in Monaco, they had a 45-minute look around while the car charged and left again. Yes, mad.
Chris has also driven from Land’s End to John O’Groats (1,652 miles in two days) and completed the North Coast 500 (516 miles) in Nissan Leafs. So he’s no stranger to adventuring in an EV, albeit each of those challenges have been in the safety of Europe and benefitted from a charging infrastructure of some description, even if it was just a threepin plug.
Mongolia is an altogether different challenge.
The journey will encompass 10,000 miles of mostly rough terrain, once the roads stop beyond Europe. Chris will have to travel through the barren landscape of the Gobi desert, traverse mountain ranges most Europeans don’t even know exist and all the while, look for somewhere to charge.
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