Adventurer Chris Ramsey Talks EVs & His Upcoming Pole-To-Pole Trip — Part 2
Chris Ramsey will drive a Nissan Ariya E-4ORCE from the North Pole to the South Pole in March 2023. He sat with me for an interview and we chatted about his achievements, his gratitude for Nissan’s support, and more. This is part two of our interview. If you have read part one, you can do so here.
In this part, we talk about:
- The Upcoming Pole-To-Pole Expedition.
- Charging An EV In Antarctica & The Arctic.
- How Chris Ramsey Felt When Being Awarded A Guinness World Record
The Upcoming Pole-To-Pole Expedition
Chris Ramsey is preparing to embark on an exciting adventure. He will become the first person to drive from the North Pole to the South Pole in an electric vehicle (EV). His goal is to raise awareness about climate change and the important role of EVs, which help reduce our collective carbon footprint.
Naturally, one can expect someone to be excited or anxious about an upcoming and important event in one’s life. I asked Chris to share how he was feeling at the moment.
“There’s different stages. So, now, you’d think I would be excited to be going — and I am. There’s obviously always excitement to go. But it’s a lot of focus on getting a lot of the elements in place, the excitement at starting to play with the technology, getting the vehicle delivered to Arctic Trucks in Iceland to start that modification process.
“It’s an excitement for all these little stages that are now starting to come, and also, the excitement of going on the trip. I think that’s going to happen around about February when we start to load in Canada. The buildup of the moment is the excitement around the technology and vehicle modifications.”
Charging An EV In Antarctica & The Arctic
Chris and his team will be using natural resources to charge the Nissan E-4ORCE electric vehicle while in both the Arctic and Antarctica. These are the windiest places on the planet and wind will be their primary source of energy. They will use the resources from the planet to create sustainable and renewable energy that powers their vehicles.
“One of the questions that have been coming up from people is ‘How are you charging the vehicle in Antarctica? In the Arctic? There are no chargers. Nobody’s going to install charging infrastructures there.’
“We’re creating such a cool new piece of technology. Taking existing wind turbine technology and making it truly portable to charge the electric car while we’re in Antarctica and the Arctic — the windiest places on the planet.”
Testing the new technology is something Chris is excited about at the moment.
How Chris Ramsey Felt When Being Awarded A Guinness World Record
Chris Ramsey holds the Guinness World Record for the longest distance traveled on an electric bike. The trip took 12 hours and covered a distance of 180.75 miles at the Grampian Transport Museum in Alford, Aberdeenshire. I asked him what that was like and to describe how he felt, so those of us reading this could kind of feel it, too.
“A lot of people think that when you do these things, whether it’s the Guinness World Record, the Mongol Rally, ‘Wow! It’s going to be amazing. You must be so high.’ There’s actually quite a low. It’s quite a bit of an anti-climax when you finish it and completed the Guinness World Record.”
He explained that when he finished it, all his friends were there cheering him on as he got off his bike kind of tired.
“I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, thanks, great, we need to pack up and go home now.’ It takes a few days to sink in. I mean, a friend of mine — Mark Beaumont, the Guinness World Record holder for circumnavigating the globe — said exactly the same thing. You finish these big challenges and then literally everyone is excited and you’re kind of going, ‘Yeah, okay,’ because the brain just kind of shuts down and wants to relax. The high from the excitement really takes over the next day.
“But the Guinness World Record was really cool. It ticked a box for me in terms of watching the Guinness World Records on TV as a kid. And I would say, ‘One day I would love to get be a Guinness World Record holder.”
And now he is.
Chris told me he always tries to do everything in the context of something and not do it for the sake of doing it. “For the Guinness World Record on the e-bike, that was working with the energy-saving trucks here in Scotland and promoting electric bikes and how they would replace vehicles in cities here — Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, etc. — as a form of commuting transport. And it shows people that you can do a 10-mile commute or a 5-mile commute even as a non-cyclist, because I am not an endurance cyclist in any way shape or form. So, it shows people they could replace that mode of transport to an e-bike and it would be simple for them to do.
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