Living the electric dream

After leaving his Holland home in March 2016, Wiebe Wakker has been on the road for over 585 days and seen 28 countries.

The 30 year old Dutchman has been diverted to Scandinavia and reached Asia via the Baltic States, Ukraine and Romania and he did this all in a Volkswagen Golf EV. Let’s just say, Wakker is living the dream – of the electric kind.

Wakker, an avid traveller, was keen to explore the world but had exhausted the hostel-hopping backpacker experiences. He has always loved driving but was never that interested in cars, having owned just one vehicle, back in 2009. But his interest in cars was sparked when viable electric vehicles began to reach the market.

Upon graduating from the Utrecht University of Arts, he established the Plug Me In project, combining his love of travelling, photography, video-making and electric cars.

Wakker is on a personal quest to uncover what exactly sustainability means, while spreading the virtues of electric mobility. He is travelling from Netherlands to Australia in the Golf EV (with a range of 200km) and is the first person to ever cross Turkey, Iran and India by electric car.

“I got interested in electric cars and always wanted to take a road trip. I thought why not drive to the other side of the world! And research how the world is progressing in the field of sustainability and promote electric mobility at the same time”, he reveals.

The Netherlands is home to 16,000 EVs and the country’s capital of Amsterdam has charging points on every street. As a result, there’s huge electric vehicle penetration, which is something Wakker believes the rest of the world can emulate.

Wakker’s journey has been financially supported by offers of accommodation through his website where he states: “Please plug me in with food, a place to sleep or energy for the car. In return for your energy I’ll offer you a Dopperbottle (a sustainable drinking bottle)”.

He has already had several partners supply him with clothing, cameras and editing tools and is currently in Malaysia where he is working to finance his final leg to Australia.

From Malaysia he will travel to Indonesia, take a car ferry to Java and hop around all the small islands to Timor Leste. And from Dili he hopes to arrive in Darwin.

The journey has involved Wakker having to locate charging stations and this has proven to be mostly a stress-free experience. Most charging operators have an app and there are some apps that attempt to have all the stations in their database including PlugShare and Chargemap.

According to Wakker, Malaysia has 220 stations, mostly located in Kuala Lumpur, while there was a handful in India’s major cities and a few in Bangkok. And Dubai is a bit of a gem, with 100 charging stations, 60 Tesla owners and a government that has just introduced incentives for electric cars. And then there’s the homes of friends he makes along the way, where he has been able to use a standard 220v outlet.

Things are a bit tricky in Thailand, however.

“I had to charge in hotels in Thailand, because of the new rule that drivers of foreign vehicles must be escorted by a government official and stay in hotels. This restricted my movements considerably”, says Wakker.

And he experienced mechanical problems in India, which set him back as well. It started with a broken spring that couldn’t be replaced and the car had to be welded.

“I got a flat tyre and replaced the wheel. But rubber bushings on the lower arms appeared to be worn out, so the car needed to be transported by truck to the nearest city. Then it was loaded on truck from an excavated hill”, Wakker explains.

“Drivers unfortunately forgot to bring tools to offload the car in the city. And new springs needed to be flown in from Holland and lower arms from Delhi. But we didn’t have the tools to load the car onto the truck and it took three days to work out how to do it!”

On the flipside, Wakker has been able to experience the diverse culture of various countries and learn about their approach to sustainability. Iran, which is the first Middle Eastern country to launch electric vehicles, was a pleasant surprise.

“I didn’t know much about the country but it has become my favourite so far. The culture, natural surroundings and architecture are all unique and beautiful – as are the people”, he reveals.

But the very idea of trying to locate a charge station in a new country could give many people anxiety.

"There are some assumptions about EVs, i.e. long distances are not possible, so when I complete my journey, I hope to have shown the world that there is no need for range anxiety”.

Indeed, ‘range anxiety’ is a common problem in which drivers descend into a state of fear that their battery could run out of charge and leave them stranded. This anxiety has raised a barrier to large-scale adoption of all-electric cars. The lack of infrastructure in

Australia, particularly, has hampered efforts to establish EVs as a viable alternative to petrol engines.

According to Dirk Arnold, vice-president of product management for BMW i Brand and e-mobility, the establishment of comprehensive recharging infrastructure has been crucial to quash concerns about range anxiety.

While a conventional petrol or diesel engine requires just five minutes to refuel, Arnold said EV owners must also re-educate themselves to recharge at every opportunity. He believes younger generations are used to constant charging of their smartphones and thus adapted more quickly to this philosophy.

Wakker is proud to say he doesn’t believe in range anxiety and has coined an alternative phrase “Range Excitement”; meaning the pleasure one experiences when discovering the natural beauties and opportunities that lie within the range of an electric vehicle. But can older drivers adopt this philosophy? Time will tell.

Wakker’s journey seems like a step forward in promoting electric mobility, but it does beg the question whether the benefits of EV’s will greatly outweigh those of petrol engines- especially with improvements to fuel efficiencies.

“The demand for oil has been decreasing and predictions say this trend will continue”, says Wakker.

“EVs have no tailpipe emissions and when charged on solar, give off zero emissions. Also they have very low maintenance costs and offer improved driving experience. The innovations in autonomous driving are benefits which cannot be achieved by traditional cars”.

And while Wakker believes electric vehicles will invariably cause job losses in the oil industry, many jobs will be created in the areas of advanced batteries and R&D.

We wish Wakker all the best with the final leg of his journey!

You can keep up to date with his journey via his site: www.plugmeinproject.com/

Further reading:
Volkswagen anticipates growing EV demand in oz
Lack of copper supply threatening future of EVs
China rolls out aggressive EV quotas for 2019
Dyson confirms EV launch for 2020