Internode’s Simon Hackett Driving His Tesla Roadster In The Global Green Challenge
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia for you – Internode ISP founder Simon Hackett bought himself Australia’s first Tesla Roadster, and this week he’s driving it from Darwin to Adelaide as part of the Global Green Challenge.
The Global Green Challenge, in case you’ve not heard of it, is a 3000km, week-long road race running from Darwin to Adelaide. It’s a test for all manner of alternative energy vehicles to test their eco-friendly credentials.
There are 54 vehicles competing in the challenge, including 37 solar-powered cars and 17 production vehicles. In order to keep the Roadster charged, the team has a generator on the back of a truck, which runs ahead of the electric vehicle and stops at points along the way to simulate having a recharging infrastructure in place. Sure, that probably won’t happen for a while yet, but it’s going to be an interesting race to follow this week. You can follow Simon’s travels on his blog here.
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Comments
And hilariously, the cars in 1st place and 2nd place are currently the V8 Maloo and the turbo XR6 – because the “race” awards cars for beating their published economy figures, and on the long highway stretches, those big engines are barely drawing breath.
Toyota refused to put a Prius in, presumably because its figures would be horrendous for all parts apart from the cities at the beginning and end.
I hope Simon’s published fuel figures include the fuel the truck and generator use…
And the cost to FLY it out here, in the words of Simon Hackett himself:
“… I ordered it in 2006, and its finally here – we just managed to get it here (literally by flying it over from LAX on the weekend) in time for the Clipsal event. …”
The truck and generator simulate infrastructure, it is the same as the petrol stations for the other cars along the journey.
“No. Just like they don’t have to factor in the fuel used by the trucks that deliver fuel to the roadhouses along the way.” – Simon Hackett
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1303211#r8
Why not have the truck attached permanently to provide power to the Tesla like a giant el cheapo remote control car, simulating an everlasting battery, or solar cells that could power the vehicle? I’m sorry, the truck is cheating IMO.
That said, good on him for trying to bring electric cars into the mix. If no one ever does, the technology will die before it’s true potential becomes the standard on our roads.
Sounds like Simons turing the tesla into a tax writeoff
it’s a fair point. I don’t see the solar cars running off petrol cause they are ’simulating the more efficient solar panels of the future’ the tesla isn’t powered by ‘the future’ its powered by electricity, and its a major weakness that it has to be charged up.