All the fossil nostalgics who worry that they will soon no longer be able to roar down German autobahns with petrol engines without a speed limit while the wind is ruffling their thinning hair at 220 km/h are still using the notorious range argument against electric cars. It is said that you can hardly turn the next street corner without having to go straight back to the socket. Of course, that’s cold coffee, there is also what an ADAC tester recently called “power guzzlers and range kings” in electric cars.
A team of students from the Bochum University of Applied Sciences is now there, a used, converted Landrover defense to be crowned a kind of range emperor: As part of the Bochum solar car project, the old combustion engine was removed and an electric motor installed. Since the end of June he has been traveling through pretty much all of Europe on a 15,000-kilometer “advertising and exchange tour for sustainable electromobility”. He doesn’t have to stop at sockets because the Landy is “energy self-sufficient”. That means he can charge his battery himself, fed directly from a 40 square meter awning on the roof.
Admittedly, it doesn’t look very streamlined. More like the old wagon borrowed the roof of a very spacious summer pavilion. But to all those petty whiners who, due to a lack of range criticism, point out that you can’t get through an underpass with such a sweeping sun sail, let alone the underground car park or car wash, let these whiners be told: you can fold the thing up and stow it in a roof rack. When the battery is running low, it’s just a matter of soaking up the sun.
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