Electric motorcycle completes solar-powered 6,000-kilometer journey through Africa kra13 cc
An electric motorcycle, made by Swedish-Kenyan manufacturer Roam completed a 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) journey from Nairobi, Kenya, to Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 17 days, using only solar power.
While the world record for the longest electric motorcycle journey is 25,000 kilometers (11,300 miles), undertaken over 42 days in the US, Roam hopes that its stunt helps to prove the viability of renewable energy for long-distance travel even in remote areas with poor charging infrastructure.
The batteries were charged en route through a solar panel charging system carried in a support vehicle, which would drive ahead each day, stopping to charge up the batteries, so that when the bike caught up it could swap the dead battery for a fresh one. During the journey, the motorcycle model, the Roam Air, achieved its new single battery record range of 113 kilometers (70 miles), and on the trip’s last day, it traveled 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in less than 18 hours.
“(We wanted) to break a lot of boundaries on how traversing through sub-Saharan Africa is possible without pre-installed charging infrastructure,” Masa Kituyi, Roam product owner and one of the riders on the expedition, tells CNN. “From Roam’s perspective, we wanted to prove that this ‘ride anywhere, charge everywhere’ ideology is true.”