Mission Africa is mission accomplished; EV goes 3,600 miles in 38 days

First, the numbers:

• 38 days of driving
• 5,800 kilometers (3,600 miles)
• About 40 battery charges
• Six countries

Those are the stats from the now-completed Mission Africa, a cross-continent trip in a "Powered by Venturi" electric Citroen Berlingo. Driver Xavier Chevrin says that the extraordinary vehicle (another kind of "EV," there), "lived up to all our expectations in an environment often hostile and always demanding." He's not kidding, since about 600 km (373 mi) of the trip was done over "rough tracks." To put this into terms anyone with a browser can understand, Google Maps says, "We could not calculate directions between Okavango and Mt Kilimanjaro."

With the historic electric vehicle trip now completed, there is much celebrating going on over at the Mission Africa website. The real message, though, seems to be where Chevrin sees plug-in vehicle technology going from here. He writes:

The welcome we received at the press conference held for our arrival at the University of Johannesburg was warm and uplifting, with the same real enthusiasm for electric technology. I'm probably repeating myself a bit, but it's a fact: Africa is the continent which shows the highest expectations and hope for this new kind of locomotion.

Interesting, no? You can experience a version of the trip yourself without dedicating 38 days to the project in a beautifully shot four-minute video below.