Chicherit looking forward to fully electric vehicles
Dakar 2020 |
Stage 5 |
ALULA
> Ha'il
January 9
th
2020
- 09:45
[GMT + 3]
Multiple projects leading to the development of alternative-fuel vehicles capable of tackling the Dakar are taking shape for the near-term future. Guerlain Chicherit is working on an especially ambitious one —cleaner, faster… and perhaps ready to go by next year.
Dakar fans got to see a well-known face visiting the bivouac in Al-ʿUla yesterday afternoon. Guerlain Chicherit, the winner of the 2009 Rally Raid World Cup, fifth in the 2010 Dakar and a two-time stage winner, did not come all the way down to Saudi Arabia to say "hi" to some old friends, including his first co-driver, Matthieu Baumel, who is now competing alongside Nasser Al-Attiyah. Back in 2015, the man from Savoy ended his last participation on a promise to come back. He is now busy plotting his comeback for 2021 with a revolutionary project. Designing and driving an electric car capable of winning the Dakar some day is a major challenge. In fact, Guerlain is even more ambitious than that: "Everyone wants to make electric cars, but the big issue is how to charge with green energy. We want to set up a system under which the entire chain is as clean as possible. How can we recharge the cars? How can we store power? How can we obtain power from the Sun? My partners and I have already developed the tech and the vehicle. At the moment, it only has a range of 40 km, but we can bump it up to 100 km soon with a few modifications. Our trucks will burn bioethanol and charge their batteries with solar power."
The plan is clear, and now the multiple-time extreme skiing world champion is racing against the clock knowing that every week counts if he is to rise to this new challenge. "The Dakar is the toughest off-road event on Earth, so it is the ideal test bed for our tech. 2021 will be a great baptism by fire, a huge challenge", he continues. Chicherit's competitive spirit is burning as fiercely as ever, so he knows that the best way to convince people is to make the clean car of the future competitive at the highest level. But is it a pie in the sky? "We know it's going to be tough because it'll be the first attempt", answers the peerless competitor, "but someone needs to take the first step. And tech will continue to evolve in 2021, 2022 and 2023. If that happens, perhaps we will be able to fight for the win in 2023… who knows? » While it may seem a utopian vision, it might have caught the attention of Winston Churchill, the author of the optimist's motto: "Everyone knew it was impossible to do. Then one day someone arrived who did not know it. And he did it."
