La Croisière Verte Carries The Legacy Of Bold Expeditions Into The Electric Era – CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

The history of humans undertaking bold expeditions stretches back to the beginning of time. There’s something about the unknown that calls us. It pulls on our imagination, and with each step forward in technology, we propel ourselves deeper into the ocean with better cameras, farther up the mountain with less oxygen, into the desert with less water, or across the next land mass in a new vehicle.

That same spirit is alive and well today. Nearly 100 years after the famous Le Croisière Monde — or The World Cruise — a new generation of adventurers are planning an epic adventure for the electric era. They plan to take four admittedly off-road-challenged Citroën Amis from Paris all the way down to the tip of South Africa in just 3 and 1/2 months.

CleanTechnica sat down with team leader Eric Vigouroux and the technical leader of the team, Maarten van Pel, to talk about their expedition, its goals, and the technology they’re using to get down there. Right at the top of the list, we wanted to know why they chose what is essentially a glorified electric golf cart for their expedition vehicle. Eric shared that the Ami would allow them to keep their vehicles as light as possible, which made the Ami a great option. Lighter vehicles won’t sink as far into the muck, are easier to push or pull out if you do get stuck and perhaps most importantly, use less energy to move. As electric vehicles running an expedition through countries with little to no electrical infrastructure, efficiency is key.

The plan was never to take stock vehicles down through Africa, and with his history of building vehicles and supporting Dakar racers, Eric had a full list of upgrades for the four Citroën Amis ready to go. With support from team sponsor Citroën on the vehicle side, they started working on tearing the vehicles down and building them back up as expedition vehicles.

The chassis were reinforced to support a larger battery pack, and with a 48-volt primary battery system, they were able to increase the capacity three-fold without having to get too technical. Using mid-voltage batteries also makes charging from solar panels much easier, as they were able to use off the shelf 48-volt solar charge managers.

To stay charged up, they tapped into the expertise of Maarten van Pel, who along with his partner Renske took a Skoda Enyak IQ from their home in the Netherlands down to South Africa over the course of 13 months on the 4×4 Electric Expedition. They drove more than 38,000 kilometers from the Netherlands down the west coast of Africa to South Africa and back up the east coast to Kenya.

A key piece of Maarten and Renske’s journey was a custom 6-kilowatt array of solar panels paired with a custom DC to DC charger developed by Venema E-Mobility Systems to push power directly from the solar panels into the vehicle’s high voltage battery. They worked with their partners at Mito Solar and other partners to build the system specifically for their trip.

The final expedition vehicles will be unveiled on October 16th at the prestigious Mondial de l’auto 2024 in Paris. The unveiling will serve as the soft launch for the expedition, with the official start following on October 28th. As with any bold expedition of this size, taking four vehicles, modifying them extensively for off-road use, and kitting them out with expedition gear is not cheap.

They have pulled together a host of big name partners to support their efforts, including SunPower, Citroen, and Box a la Carte, and still have openings for more sponsors. For more information or to jump on board to support this bold clean tech expedition, reach out to the team for more information.

For more information about La Croisière Verte, check out their website or follow them on your favorite social network: Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn | X.