This guy is driving his electric car from Amsterdam to Sydney

“HORROR, worst case scenario” is how Wiebe Wakker described his predicament.

The epic journey prior – across Europe, the Middle East and Asia – saw him relying upon the generosity of strangers for food, shelter and electricity to recharge his vehicle. The Plug Me In project, as Wakker has called it, aims to promote sustainability and demonstrate that renewable technologies can replace old ones.

Wakker and the Blue Bandit enjoy some snow in Turkey, 2017. Source: Supplied/Plug Me In.

“Sustainability is not just solar panels or green agriculture. You can do really cool things with sustainability,” Wakker told Asian Correspondent in a phone interview, noting that the idea was inspired by his love of travel and the need to complete a final assignment for his events management degree at the Amsterdam University of the Arts.

“I told my teacher for my final project I want to travel around the world. He said ‘you’re crazy’,” Wakker recalled. Yet a few months later, he was on the road.

Asked if the prolonged breakdown in Indonesia undermined the credibility of electric vehicles he said: “I drove 60,000 km so far and 31 countries without having major issues. This is a very old car and from 2009, custom made. It requires some specific knowledge to fix the car, whereas if you’d bought a production line electric you could fix it anywhere.”

Wiebe Wakker and his car in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Source: Supplied/Plug Me In.

“There’s actually less that can go wrong with an electric car because there’s less moving parts,” he added.

Experts from the Netherlands are now in Surabaya helping to fix the Blue Bandit, the costs of their travel and expenses being covered by a Plug Me In crowdfunding page.

“I really like the countries where things are a bit different to Western countries, India, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia as well. If you bring an electric car into country like these, it feels like pioneering,” Wakker said.

A post shared by Wiebe Wakker / Plug Me In (@plugmeintravel) on Feb 18, 2018 at 2:32am PST

Iran, though, was his favorite. “I didn’t know so much about this country. I was really surprised by the hospitality, it was a beautiful country also,” he said, adding that: “people there are so kind, so generous. They take me into their home so then they bring their cousins, then their cousins’ brothers, so then I have to tell my story 20 times a day. It can be a bit challenging to travel alone.”

The challenges haven’t been limited to the Indonesian breakdown and curious Iranians. Wakker said that the process of organizing visas and bringing a car into 31 separate countries had been a headache.

Moreover, in more remote parts of the globe, people’s home generators only have around 900 watts, whereas the car requires 2000 watts to charge. “In Kalimantan (Indonesia), I was in villages looking around to factories to see if they could help me. In parts of India, the power cuts for hours at a time.”

With the Blue Bandit almost ready to return to the road, Wakker will head across Bali and eastern Indonesia towards Timor Leste, prior to shipping it across to Darwin in northern Australia. After this, he will begin the final leg across the continent to Sydney.

Wakker reflected that many countries he’d visited in Asia still had a lot of work to do to reach basic levels of sustainability. “Indonesia is on the equator and there is so much sun, but you don’t see any solar panels. It’s a pity, I hope that people will realise that there are better alternatives,” he said.

Nevertheless, he added, “I find it interesting that in every country there is something going on in terms of sustainability. There are always people working on it.”

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Source: travelwireasia.com