Zero Carbon World has set a new John O’Groats to Lands End electric vehicle record, completing the trip with only 1 hour, 32 minutes, 32 seconds taken for charging.
Completing the trip in just 15 hours and 32 minutes, representatives from the charity made the run in a Tesla Model 3 Performance. Charging stops were made at only four locations – three Ionity sites at Perth, Gretna Green, and Cullompton, and a Tesla Supercharger in Staffordshire.
Zero Carbon World was represented by trustee Dean Fielding, chairman and Formula E racing driver Alexander Sims, and EV specialist David Peilow. They drove 855.2 miles, beating both the shortest charging time and shortest time in an EV, set in 2015.
Dean Fielding said: “We’re ecstatic to have achieved this incredible time, which is less than half that of the previous record. The attempt was in the planning for just two weeks, when David [Peilow] realised that a high-speed Ionity charger had been installed in Cullompton, Devon. This made it possible to attempt a new record with high-speed charging stations at suitable points along the way.”
Alexander Sims explained: “We didn’t overcharge the car at any time. We were mostly charging to somewhere in the 50-60 per cent region, with one of our charging stops taking the car to 80 per cent. We would make it to the next charger with around 4-5 per cent remaining. David did all the calculations for us and it was very well predicted.”
The journey was undertaken in a standard specification Tesla Model 3 Performance, and no funds from the charity – which provides EV charge points to the hospitality industry – were used in the record attempt.
David Peilow said: “We averaged 6.05 km/kWh, with a charging efficiency of 97 per cent. When considering the grid carbon intensity and losses, we averaged 19.5g CO2/km. The Tesla Model 3 Performance was chosen for the record attempt due to its charging capacity, rate and range.
“Not all EVs could achieve the charging time we did, but plenty of EV models are capable of comfortably making the epic road trip, simply by charging to 80 per cent rather than our minimal charges.
“Since I last made this journey back in 2011, the charging infrastructure has improved dramatically across the UK. High-speed charging networks such as Ionity use the CCS charging standard that many EVs use. It’s fantastic to see the national charging network growing in the UK and across Europe to make such long journeys easy and accessible for more EV drivers.”
Sims said: “he record attempt couldn’t have been completed without the support of the EV community. Thank you to the fantastic support that we received at each charging station from fellow EV drivers.
“They helped us to gather all the required data, images and video in order to fully catalogue the record attempt, and we will be submitting this to Guinness World Records with the hope that it will be able to validate the attempt in the coming weeks.”
