Venturi
When Prince Albert II of Monaco visited Antarctica in 2009, he was unpleasantly surprised that people move around one of the cleanest corners of the world by transport with "dirty" internal combustion engines. He turned to the Venturi company with an order for the development of an environmentally friendly all-terrain vehicle with electric traction. Since then, two trial models have been released, and the final third is now being prepared for shipment to Antarctica.
The project of an electric Antarctic all-terrain vehicle is not a whim of the monarch, but also an urgent need for scientists. It is important for them to collect the cleanest possible samples of snow, ice, air, etc., so often researchers prefer to get to the place on foot, rather than go on snowmobiles. Antarctica is extremely important from the point of view of studying the changing climate and in some cases literally every molecule in the sample is important, so environmentally friendly electric transport will be very much in demand.
Venturi
Venturi
The third Venturi Antarctica model can carry up to 6 people and travel a distance of up to 50 km. On the one hand, this is a limitation of the battery, whose capacity is 52.6 kWh,and charging takes from 2 to 18 hours, depending on the charging station. On the other hand, the electric all-terrain vehicle is designed for trips around the base, and not for long autonomous transitions. All components and components of the machine are designed to operate at -60 °C.
Venturi
Currently, the electric rover is being tested, it will be prepared for shipment to Antarctica by December of this year. The starting place of work for him will be the Belgian station "Princess Elisabeth", which is the first"zero-emission" scientific complex on this continent.
