Electric vehicles have set off from Geneva on an epic race around the world that aims to be carbon emission-free.
The Zero Race is intended to also raise awareness about climate change, mobility and renewable energies.

“It’s hard to believe we’re setting off on such an adventure,” a nervous Nick Jones, driver of the Australian Team Trev three-wheel electric car, told swissinfo.ch. “Fingers crossed.”

Organized by Swiss teacher Louis Palmer, the event attracted huge interest from the media with around 100 journalists there for the start of the race.

Four teams are taking part. The two-man teams from Australia, Germany and Switzerland fired up their electric vehicles at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva and inched silently down the “Aisle of Flags” leading to the Place des Nations on Monday afternoon.

The fourth team from South Korea will join the race in Lausanne.
The other teams drove through the city before opening their throttles or putting their feet down as they headed eastwards through Switzerland on the start of their 30,000-kilometre Jules Verne-inspired race, which will finish in Geneva again in January 2011.

On the way they will stop off in 150 cities including Brussels, Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai, Los Angeles and Cancun for the UN climate change meeting at the end of November.

Palmer came up with the idea of the race after the overwhelmingly positive response he got from his 18-month tour through 38 countries in his solar-powered taxi, which ended in Root, canton Lucerne, in December 2008.

“Solar Taxi was such a huge success, reaching some 770 million people via the media. There was so much interest I thought I just have to do it again,” he explained. “Together we can show that this is the mobility of the future for a greener, safer planet.”

Electric friends

The four teams participating in the Zero Race are people Palmer met during his last global trip who were already working on green vehicle projects.

“I’m really excited to be driving my own electric design around the world,” explained Tobias Wuelser, team leader for the Swiss Team Zerotracer.

It has taken the 32-year-old design engineer and his team from Winterthur five years to perfect their two-seater electric motorbike, installing new technology into the elongated chassis.

The SFr120,000 Zerotracer, which Wuelser claims is “the fastest electric motorbike in the world”, has a maximum speed of 240km/hour. The bike is powered by a 420-volt cobalt-lithium-magnesium battery that allows it to run for 350 km before recharging.

One of its main competitors is likely to be the “Trev” (Two-seater Renewable Energy Vehicle), a 350kg, three-wheeled electric car built by students from Adelaide’s University of South Australia.

Although it is slower than the Zerotracer, with a maximum speed of 120km/h and a range of 250km, Jones is confident about his team’s chances. “The trick with this race will be reliability and staying safe – it’s a long way,” he said.

swissinfo.ch