The Hyundai Kona electric at Ravensthorpe. Supplied.
Who remembers the 1981 movie ‘Cannonball Run’ starring Burt Reynolds? The goal was to drive from one side of the US to the other in record time, and anything was fair game.
Apart from thin plots and lots of action scenes, the movie title has inspired the inaugural Plasmaball Run.
Several West Australian members of AEVA decided we should set a challenging road trip in some more affordable EVs. Get to Esperance as quick as you can, using whatever means you can, so long as it was electric. At about 700 km, it’s a long trip no matter which route you take. Power out here is good, just not particularly abundant.
The AEVA has helped establish a network of three-phase sockets at pubs, roadhouses and shire buildings forming the basis of our “bush standard” EV charging infrastructure. We live in hope there will be some DC fast chargers on the road to Esperance in the next year.
The trip would be entirely manageable in even the basest model Tesla. But for this trip we had a Hyundai Kona EV, the brand new Nissan Leaf and the Renault Zoe.
Our goal was to demonstrate that it’s entirely possible to travel rural Australia in a mid-range EV, despite there being effectively no charging network.
To read the full story of this exciting road trip, please go to on RenewEconomy’s electric vehicle dedicated site, The Driven, and click here…
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