Here's a little video edit I made of Céüse and the climbing, shot using a DJI Spark mini drone (new toy!):
 |
| On top (and above) Céüse at sunset |
Driving to Céüse in an Electric Car (EV)
On the news today there has been much talk about EV's as the government has announced a ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2040. This is great news. Although I expect no one will want to drive a petrol car long before then after experiencing an EV. The government announcement today has sparked lots of concern from non EV drivers that it's not possible to travel long distance in an EV. I hope this trip will demonstrate otherwise, albeit with a bit of planning.
We drove a 2nd hand 2014 Nissan LEAF with a 24kWh battery, all new EV's have significantly larger (30-40kWh+) battery, therefore can travel further per charge making long journeys like this even easier.
 |
| The Journey, EV driving in blue, EutoTrain section in red |
 |
| Nissan LEAF at 1500m below Petit Céüse |
When I started driving an EV at the end of last year the plan was to 'electrify' and reduce the carbon emissions for our daily commutes to work and local driving around N.Wales e.g. cragging on the Orme, Pass, Tremadog, Gogarth etc. I had calculated that these local journeys added up to account for many more miles average over the year than one or two longer trips away in the van e.g. to the alps. Initially my plan was to keep my van for longer trips.
However, it soon became apparent that our electric car was capable of much more than just a local run-around. Roll on 8 months and 12,000 electric miles later we have we have now ditched both my diesel van and our diesel car in favour of a single fully-electric 2014 24kWh Nissan LEAF. After experiencing driving an EV it felt like a step backwards to take my van for a long trip. It was difficult to justify the vastly increased carbon and particulate emissions, noisy, less comfortable driving and massively more expensive option of driving my van. See my previous blog post "Zero Carbon Future, Low Carbon Present" comparing the emissions and running cost of EV Vs petrol / diesel cars.