Nonetheless, we were brimming with anticipation to see what Ecuador would bring. Not only have they recently had an attempted coup with roads and borders around the country closed, we had also been advised that the border crossing is extremely difficult and that it could take 5 or 6 hours easily. We have had enough experience at border crossings to know that this is no exaggeration, so we were keen to get any help we could. And in comes Sebastian, our a colombian guardian angel it would seem, and along with his contacts in Ecuador, he assured us he would get us across with no problems in less than 2 hours. We remained to be convinced…

Before the drive to the border though, we had an impromptu media event outside the hotel amid another swarm of onlookers. So keen where they to ask questions and find out what we are doing that they actually delayed our departure quite significantly. However, the sun was out and we didn’t have a long leg ahead, so we weren’t particularly fussed.

At around 11 we made it away from the hotel and began the drive to the border. The first few kilometres was through the city, so not much to comment on here, but shortly afterwards the climb up to the border post began, and the scenery again stunned us into absolute silence! How this road was built, carved into the steepest of mountainsides, I will never know! The ravines and gorges we passed by were so deep that we couldn’t see the bottom from the road; only getting out of the car and going right to the edge if the cliff could you see all the way down. Honestly, I am at a complete loss as to how Mother Nature can manufacture landscapes of such immeasurable beauty and grandeur! No more can be said…please take a look at the pictures to see what I’m babbling about!

Around 85km later we reached the border post. Previously, we had had pretty unpleasant experiences at the border crossings, from long queue times, hideous amounts of paperwork and smelly dilapidated buildings. However, the Colombia/Ecuadorian border was smart and staffed by very professional, friendly and well dressed personel. It was a welcome change!

In fact, the whole process was a welcome change! Our passports were stamped out of Colombia and into Ecuador without any problems, and within a very short space of time all the paperwork was done and the cars were legally allowed into the country! We were all shocked; from the moment we arrived to the moment we drove into Ecuador, including all the parking and faffing around, took just 1 hour and 45 minutes…a record by a long shot! Many thanks to Sebastian’s friends for helping us out so much today; we couldn’t have done it so fast without you!

While we were waiting for the paperwork to be completed, we met our police escort. Armed to the hilt and extremely well equipped, they were going to escort us the next 70 miles or so to Ibarra, our stop for the night. These were not normal police either; they were from a special tactical division and this could be seen in the way they were dressed and the way they walked and talked. These guys looked like real soldiers! Why they had been drafted in to look after a bunch of Europeans with an electric car is still a mystery to me, but nonetheless we were extremely grateful for it!

While waiting for the paperwork, we got a chance to talk to the police. By talking I actually mean motioning wildly at their firearms and asking to hold one and pretend to be James Bond! Yes, you don’t need to say it; we are kids some of the time as well, and with quite active imaginations to boot! Anyway, it was amazing how relaxed they were about letting us hold their loaded weapons, and, as with all our encounters with the police, I pushed our luck by asking if we can have a go at shooting the guns. Normally they say a categoric no, but this time they agreed! They said a few miles down the road we would be able to shoot. We were jumping with joy!

So, with all the papers signed, we reconvened the convoy, now including a 4×4 police truck, and we headed south into Ecuador! The first thing you notice is the change in ethnicity; all of a sudden the European influence all but disappears, and most people seem to be from some indigenous mix. We also passed through a town which seemed very unlike what we had become used to in Colombia. Nonetheless, we never felt unsafe at all, and the people remained as friendly as ever.

While in this town, we stopped for a bite to eat. Well, it was more than a bite actually, it was a massive meal of chicken, rice and shrimp, and needless to say, it was delicious! After the restaurant, we headed out of the town and back onto the Pan-American Highway. To our infinite delight, the road was perfect; easily as good as what we encountered in El Salvador! The road was so good, it looked like exactly what you would find on a race track; smooth, black tarmac! We followed the road for around an hour until our police escort stopped at a turning into a small country lane, and a masked policeman got out of the car and with his M16 automatic rifle, motioned for us to get out of the car…

We were under the impression we were going to a shooting range, but here we were, in the middle of nowhere, with masked policeman motioning for us to go down the country road. It actually looked far more dodgy than it felt, for we quickly worked out that this was where we were going to shoot.

“On a county road!?” you may exclaim. Surprising as that sounds, that’s exactly where we were going to shoot! The policeman found a few plastic bottles and lined them up on a sandbank on the other side of the road, and at this point he handed across his rifle to Toby, and told him to shoot the bottle! We were maybe 5m away from the bottle and about 1m away from the gun…BANG! Toby had scored a direct hit on the apple on the bottles label!

Next up it was my turn to fire, but just before I could, a car turned down the road and came between me and the target. The policeman advised me that I shouldn’t fire, and when the car had passed, he motioned for me to proceed! I surely do not need to further describe how absolutely bizarre, exciting and just unbelievably random that we were here, in the middle of the Ecuadorian mountains, shooting lethal M16s with absolutely no form of protection, training, or anything else you may find in the more economically developed countries! This was undoubtedly one of the trip’s highlights for all of us, and we were just bubbling over with excitement! These are events which you can’t plan, pay for or expect…this is the beauty of spontaneity, and we love it!

From here onwards we carried on our journey to Ibarra. By now it was dark and there was very little to see until we reached the hotel which was set amid lush temperate gardens. I say temperate because even though we had been descending from the border, we were still at around 1,800m above sea level, and so even though we were only just north of the equator, it really wasn’t that warm! Quite unexpected I have to say!

Anyway, after our massive lunch we weren’t particularly hungry, so we just had a small soup each for dinner and headed back to our rooms, which is where I am currently writing this from!

Good night and best regards from Ecuador!

It’s always a nice start to the day to see the car in the morning with a full 100% state of charge in the battery pack, and today was no exception! We were expecting a long and very mountainous drive today, so we needed all the charge we could get. After saying goodbye to Diego we rejoined the Pan-American Highway and continued south on our journey to Pasto around 240 miles away and a good 1.6km higher than our present location.

By now, when it comes to talking about scenery, I’m sure I sound like a broken down record player. But the truth is that the scenery keeps on getting better and better! I honestly thought I had seen it all in Alaska and Canada, but really it’s nothing to the kind of mountains and roads to be found here in Colombia. This is exacerbated by the climatic differences found at different altitudes; for example, within a distance of 50 miles we passed from lush tropical mountainsides through more temperate vegetation and then bottoming out in a desert replete with cacti and barren rock! All this a few degrees north of the equator…really incredible!

While passing through these amazing landscapes, we came across something quite unexpectedly. We stopped the car in a little lay-by on the side of the road to check an odd noise coming from the rear (it turned out to be a tie wrap hitting a cable; something that was easily rectified) when we noticed a zip wire that one could have a go on. This zip wire was like none other I had seen before; it stretched all the way to the other side of the valley, and one couldn’t even see where it finished! It was so extreme that just looking at it made your heart rate double!

Normally, we are very keen to push on to avoid driving at night, but this was one opportunity we just couldn’t afford to miss! So myself, Clemens, Chris and Cynthia each paid our $5 to zip across the valley, and it was truly an exhilarating experience! You travel down really fast and a very long way above the valley floor, and you come to a fairly abrupt halt at the end too, but it was worth every penny! Check out the hoots to see what I mean! After doing it we speculated why exactly there would be such a mode of transport in this place given the remoteness of the location and the difficulty in erecting it. We suggested it may be the remnants of some guerilla escape route so they could move quickly from one mountain to another if under attack…well, who knows?!

Aside from the quite breathtaking scenery and zip wire across the valley, the drive was fairly uneventful. The road surface quality was so so, not quite on par with the roads between Bogota and Cali, but nowhere near as bad as found outside Cartagena or Guatemala. However, this uneventfulness all changed just before sundown when the support van stopped to take some photos in the fading daylight, and the SRZero powered ahead solo into the night…

Toby and I were in the SRZero and we were getting scared. Prior to the drive, KPMG and others were telling us that this was a dangerous road and we shouldn’t drive at night. Apparently this was prime FARC zone and just last week people had been robbed, so we were advised to travel the road during the day. However, the driving had taken longer than expected what with the zip wire stunt, and we had no choice but to drive the last couple of hours through the night. Anyway, we were sure that, like all the other nights we have driven, there would be ample traffic around which would keep things a little safer.

However, for some reason there was no traffic. Coupled with this, we were driving in a deep canyon and it was extremely dark, and the last piece of scare mongering came when we received a call from KPMG where, at 8 o’clock, Andres, Marie-Claire and Catalina were still in the office worried sick about us. They made it explicitly clear how scared they were for us and that we should please hurry up and get to Pasto! This made us feel very insecure and so we felt the safest thing we could do would be to find somewhere safe-looking to stop and wait for the others in the van.

We radioed to the van but no answer was forthcoming from the inky darkness. Furthermore, we began thinking something may have happened to the van, or we’d taken a wrong turning and a whole multitude of unpleasant scenarios poured forth from our imagination! However, a few minutes later, Clemens’ very welcome German accent came across the airwaves and we were assured that they were close. Seconds later they came into view and we were reunited once more! As it happened, it turned out that the van had had their fair share of extreme experiences on the drive down, so we were all very happy to be together again!

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful; nothing really to report as we couldn’t actually see anything beyond the reach of our headlights. The last stretch brought us up to a toll booth where, on the other side, Sebastian and a whole convoy were waiting for us! A bunch of really cool people from the car community had brought a whole selection of their vehicles up to accompany us into Pasto, and so with the SRZero, van, bike and a whole consortium of rally cars, motorbikes and 40 year old land rovers, we headed for Pasto!

After a short while we arrive at our hotel and we were greeted by a local news channel and a small race car built by teenagers in this city. However, the amazing thing was that these kids come from nothing with no formal education in engineering, and very little resources at their disposal. But nonetheless, they were able to put together a really cool single seated track racer based on a 4 cylinder motorbike engine…extremely impressive! Seeing it drive was even more impressive as we were able to take it for a drive on the streets of Pasto! This was completely illegal of course, but the watching police didn’t seem to mind too much at all!

The following few hours saw us put the car on charge in the garage of a local restaurant, eat in said establishment, and then head back to the hotel to thoroughly pass out! I don’t think we had been more tired at any point in the trip, and it was great to be able to get 8 hours of sleep for a change!

The excellent road quality from the previous day’s drive continued, but whereas before we were driving on twisty, mountainous and single lane roads, today’s road was a beautiful straight dual carriageway taking us all the way to Cali. So good was the road in fact, that we were able to really open up the SRZero, and with the extremely relaxed approach taken to speeding in this country, we took her up to 162km/h, our software-limited maximum speed!

A highlight of the journey came unexpectedly when we stopped to refuel the support van, which needs a refuel almost as often as the SRZero! For some reason there was a whole gaggle of school children around, and they absolutely swarmed the SRZero, with more arriving all the time. They were in an absolute excitement frenzy, and this was only exacerbated when Toby took out some posters and started signing autographs. All of them were pushing to have a signed poster, and before long, some of their mums joined in the scrum too, and Toby was completely surrounded!

But we did have an appointment to get to, so we left the children amid cheers and waves, and we sped the remainder of our 220km journey. Our destination was completely unique; a battery manufacturing plant just outside of Cali where we had been invited for a tour of the plant as well as offered a place to store and charge the car overnight. At around 12.30pm we arrived, and were welcomed by MAC’s Vice President, Diego Castro.

MAC is a producer of lead acid batteries, and we were keen to visit them not just from a personal curiosity point of view, but also to find out more about Colombia’s efforts into EV technology. Too often we shun the idea of lead acid batteries powering commercially viable EVs as lithium ion technology is much more advantageous apart from the price (they are about 5 times more expensive than lead acid batteries right now). However, there are still many applications, both EV and otherwise, in which lead acids are used and in which they will continue to be used for many years to come, so we were very keen to find out about this as well!

As usual though, the SRZero needed attention before anything else was to happen, so we quickly put it on charge in their workshop. With this done, we could then go and satisfy our rumbling stomachs, and we were treated to a delicious lunch in the company’s cafeteria. During lunch we had a chance to chat with Diego about the company in general, but the real story was to come after lunch…

In short, MAC was a company started by Diego’s father in 1957. Originally they were in the business of refurbishing spent batteries from cars and trucks. Soon they decided to start building their own batteries, and before long they had absorbed much of their local competition, and today they build 3.5 million batteries a year making them the third largest producer in Latin America! It was the typical rags to riches story, with really tough beginnings for the family that started it; truly humbling!

After an explanation of how the company was founded, we went to see the production process right from the raw materials all the way through to a completely packaged battery. You may be wondering exactly what raw materials are needed for a lead acid battery, the type you typically find in your car for example. Well, in MAC’s case, 100% of their raw materials comes from spent batteries. All the lead, water, acid and plastic is completely recycled such that one old battery can make one completely new one. However, as technology improves, the amount of lead needed in each battery to hold the same energy is reduced, and so for each old battery recycled, there becomes a surplus of lead which MAC are then able to sell…fascinating business!

We then moved on to the tour of the production line, and here we were truly amazed! On one side we saw dirty, leaky, broken batteries, and on the other side we saw brand new shiny ones! The process is in theory very simple, but as always, the devil is in the detail, and it was clear when looking at the machines how long it must have taken to calibrate each one so that the consistency and quality of each component can be assured. I would love to go into detail as to what we saw, but I fear that would take too long for me to write down! Suffice to say that at the end of the tour we were incredibly impressed with the company and what they are doing.

After the tour, we headed to our hotel in the centre of Cali and started on our daily digestion of emails and other administrative stuff. Cali, from what we saw, had a really great feel about it, and minutes away from our hotel were an abundance of bars and restaurants. By the evening we were sufficiently starving, so we headed to one such place where they were offering an all you can eat sushi deal, and we proceeded to thoroughly stuff ourselves on the delicious morsels!

Another successful and enjoyable day in our quest to conquer the Pan-American Highway! A big thanks to MAC and Diego for showing us around their fantastic facility and for giving us a very thorough insight into such an interesting industry.

At 7.30am we arrived at the KPMG garage in order to pack the van (it always needs a full repack and tidy in the mornings) and to prep the car for its journey. Before leaving, the marketing department from KPMG who had helped us so much, namely Catalina, Marie-Claire and Andres, came to see us off over a delicious breakfast nearby. They also accompanied us out of the city to ensure we got the right road out, but before we could even leave the city boundaries, Toby noticed something wrong with the car.

It appeared that the voltage on the low voltage system was dropping and that the DCDC converter, which normally keeps this system at a healthy 13.4V, wasn’t doing its job. With this component not working, we have perhaps half an hour maximum of driving before the voltage gets too low and the car shuts itself down. The last time we had anything which resembled this problem was in Canada, however, we knew the reason for that. At this point though, we could think of nothing that would cause a failure in the DCDC, so it was with a great deal of curiosity that we decided to pull into a petrol station to have a quick look.

The seat was very quickly removed, and with the voltmeter we started investigating the problem. It didn’t take us very long to isolate the problem; the DCDC was in perfect working order, however, one of the cables going to it was broken. The interesting thing was that it couldn’t be seen as the break was under some heat shrink and in between some inductors which were on this line. With the wire repaired, we found the low voltage system was up and running again.

As you may remember from yesterday’s blog post, we had worked out that disconnecting the DCDC solved the starting up problem of the car. So, as we were fixing this misbehaving cable, the thought occurred to us that this may have been the cause of the starting up problem in the first place. Further investigation proved this theory to be correct, and we were very pleased that we had finally solved the one and only problem that we had so far been unable to fix! With this now fixed, we had renewed confidence in the car, so we put the seat back in and prepared to leave!

However, because of the drive we were scheduled to have today (more about this in a sec) I decided to check that our new fans were working correctly before leaving. But the fans didn’t turn on, and for the second time that day we were confused. However, we were not to be deterred, so we quickly whipped out the seat (again) and prodded around some more. Our first hunch was correct; a blown fuse, so we swapped it for a new one and tried the fans once again. The fuse blew instantly, so we knew their must have been a short circuit somewhere. After taking off the rear bodywork, we noticed a small section of cable had chaffed away, allowing it to contact with the chassis and effectively causing a short circuit and thereby blowing the fuse. The problem was quickly rectified, the fans were tested, and we were good to go!

Despite the hold up, this pitstop was actually very useful. We had solved several problems extremely quickly, and it had taught us yet again that no matter how well you design something on the computer, there is so substitute for hands on experience! The car is so complex that no one can predict how it will behave under all the varying conditions we have put it through, but finding out the problems and working out how to fix them is immensely valuable to us as engineers hoping to make a career in this industry!

Anyway, with the car fixed it was time to head on down the road. We had long predicted that this road would be a challenge, and as we all love a challenge, we had each fought over who should drive it! Myself and Toby won, and it was he that took on the first half of the drive. This route was truly epic in nature; it starts out in Bogota at 2,500m above sea level, and rapidly descends down to sea level for a relatively long and straight section through the hot and humid lowlands. From here it very steeply climbs up to over 3,200m, high enough for snow to fall, before descending down over 1,500m into Armenia, our stop for the night! Given all these very steep inclines, you can understand why we were so keen to have the cooling fans on the radiator working correctly; anything less and the car would overheat.

The total distance was short, only about 280km, but with the terrain that we were to cross, and knowing how low average speeds can be on these squiggly mountain roads, we wanted to give ourselves the luxury of time; we didn’t want to get stuck on this mountain in the dark…

The first half of the drive down to sea level was absolutely spectacular, and rivalled any of the scenery we have seen so far! The road was in excellent condition, traffic was very light, and we were able to make really good progress down into the valley. The weather was fantastic and the drive was going really smoothly. We allowed ourselves a quick stop for lunch before we were off again and heading for the highest point on our journey; La Linea! But as we hit the incline, even our worst case predictions proved optimistic…

For a start, the road was steeper and twistier than anything we had seen yet. In addition, the truck traffic was heavy, and as such our average speed dropped considerably. Often we were stuck behind trucks making speeds of no more than 8 or 9 miles an hour as we curved our way up the very steep mountain. Overtaking was particularly difficult as the corners were so sharp you could never see round them for anyone coming in the opposite direction, and the fact that there are so many trucks backed up that it’s often difficult to slip back into your lane once having overtaken!

However, after some very tenacious driving, we made it up to the top of the 3,250m peak; the highest any of us had ever driven, and the highest point scheduled on our trip! We arrived in pitch black darkness, but it was all surprisingly undramatic as we couldn’t see any view, and we very quickly started going down hill again.

We normally love going downhill as it means we can go fast and gain back some energy through regenerative braking. So when trucks and cars are normally using their gears rather than brakes to keep them going at a steady speed downhill, we are actually recharging the batteries! But with all the truck traffic, going down was barely faster than going up, however, overtaking was much faster, and so it wasn’t long before we were able to make it into our hotel in Armenia at around 8.30pm. It certainly was a fantastic drive, right up there with the best, but for the drivers it had been incredibly tiring! Driving at night while trying to avoid trucks are just extra obstacles when driving this road even during a clear day is challenge enough!

So, with a very successful day behind us, the car on charge in the hotel garage, and us amply fed, we hit the sack hard! It was great to be back on the road with a fully functioning car, and we were looking forward to the next day which promised us yet another exciting drive!

News from the work on the car was encouraging. Small problems which had recently cropped up, such as the brake lights being always on, were solved (this was due to a welded shut relay) and the bigger issue of why the car sometimes wouldn’t start was beginning to become clearer, although it would be a quite unexpected incident a day later which would end up giving us the final solution. For now though, we had isolated the fact that when the DCDC converter (the component converting the high voltage from the battery pack to the 12V needed for the low voltage circuit) was disconnected, the car would start perfectly every time. When it was reconnected, it would only work maybe 65% of the time. So essentially, we knew it had something to do with the converter, but no matter what investigations we carried out, we could not determine the precise reason for the problem. However, given the fact that we start the car maybe twice a day, it certainly isn’t a show stopper!

We had actually been expecting Bogota to be a place where we could rest somewhat after the previous 3 days of hard driving and the really intense week of fixing the car that we had in Cartagena. However, as usual, there were more than enough things to do to keep us fully occupied, and so when it came to Saturday night, we were all far too tired to go out. Instead, we had some people round to the apartment and enjoyed our last evening in Bogota in comfort and style.

The rest of the day was spent investigating odd behaviour on the car. While the car works perfectly when driving, we were a little mystified over some quite strange behaviour when starting up the car. On most occasions, the car starts up just fine, but sometimes it doesn’t, and it’s this inconsistency which caused us to be fiddling around until dinnertime. As you can see, the car doesn’t work or not work; it’s not as black and white as that as there are varying degrees of correct functionality! with the car still perfectly able to drive, we are not particularly concerned, but we are perfectionists and we want to know what’s going on!

Unfortunately, due to all of this we didn’t get to see certain things in Bogota that we really wanted to see. However, given how much we are all smitten with this city, we’ll be back soon enough to fill in the dots!

After very limited hours of sleep, we were up today bright and early for the KPMG press day which was something we were looking forward to given the huge amount of interest in the project across Colombia. We had a press conference in the morning at the KPMG offices, followed by a presentation at the National University where we displayed the car amidst a huge crowd of students and staff. Here we were also accompanied by the local arm of National Instruments, another one of our major sponsors. This was perhaps one of the most enjoyable outreach events of the trip, and I was humbled to see how many people turned up to see the car and ask questions.

Just before we left the university, we were joined by the electric go-kart which students at this public university are building. It reminded us yet again that despite the low level of resources at this university’s disposal, there are still strides being made in this field. Yes, they are not as advanced as equivalent student projects going on elsewhere, but they are making a promising start!

However, the main news of the day was not RGE in Colombia, but something far bigger with much more wide reaching consequences. The President in Ecuador was attacked by members of his police force in what is being called a coup d’etat. The situation as it currently stands is volatile with roads, airports and borders being closed. This means that at present, we can’t cross into Ecuador, and if the situation worsens, we will not be able to cross the country. To the best of my knowledge, there isn’t another way around the country into Peru, so we are going to have to wait and see what happens! At the moment, we are being advised to stay put in Bogota and wait until the situation becomes clearer…let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later!

However, before we could do so, we were due at the KPMG offices for some media interviews. While the majority of our interviews are actually tomorrow, today we had a few select media outlets with very large followers. We also got the chance to meet a whole bunch of the KPMG staff, all who are extremely friendly, and we gave a few people some rides as well.

Unfortunately, the day finished just as it became dark and so there isn’t much more I can tell you about the city. What I can say is that we’re just about to go and explore the city by night, and so I shall report when I have more info! Buenas Noches!

“So? What’s the problem in climbing a kilometre?” you may be inclined to ask. Well, it’s not that simple because from Medellin you automatically climb to 2,500m before descending to 300m, and from there, there is about 3km of total vertical ascent to get up to Bogota! This is due to the up and down nature of the road, and this kind of terrain takes a heavy toll on the amount of energy needed to complete the journey. This holds true for electric cars just as much as other cars; steep inclinations like we were experiencing is the absolute death knell for range.

But that’s not all; the type of road and traffic conditions can play just as much a role in how far you can expect your car to last. In the case of today’s road, it was all very twisty single lane roads. Lots of curves are also bad for your range because it involves accelerating out of every curve. If this sounds a little odd, try it for yourself; if you want to maintain your speed through a bend in the road, you have to press harder on the throttle.

Furthermore, the type of traffic on this road, which is the main transport artery between Medellin and Bogota, is dominated by large trucks. So you can imagine that they trundle extremely slowly up the slopes and round the bends, typically at around 30-40km/h; far too slow for us to make any decent progress! So for us to keep our average speed up, we are forced to do very rapid overtaking, and this too increases our energy consumption, especially when going uphill.

So with all the above issues, we were very concerned about whether the car would be able to make it or not. In addition, we were also expecting the journey to take a very long time, so we made sure that we were ready and on the road for 8.30am. On our way out of Medellin, we were accompanied by a whole bunch of guys from the university, and we gave as many of them as we could rides in the SRZero. It was a real shame to have to say goodbye as they are a really great group of people, but that’s the nature of the trip unfortunately; we meet so many people and see so many great places, but very rarely do we get to find out much about either!

After leaving the guys on the outskirts of Medellin, we headed south east on our journey, accompanied by our ever present police escort. In fact, this is something we have been very impressed with. Throughout our driving in Colombia we have been given a police escort to show us the way and help us through the traffic, and yes, to whip out the guns if something bad were to happen (which it hasn’t)! In fact, they are most invaluable when trying to overtake on these narrow and twisty roads as they drive ahead and signal us through when there’s no oncoming traffic. Anyway, it has to be mentioned how friendly, professional, smart and well dressed these men in uniform are…they do a real credit to their country.

So, onward with the description of the journey. From a scenery point of view, it was incredible and amongst the best of the entire 40 days of driving! Occasionally there were a few roadside shacks and stalls, but for the majority the road cut through a pretty remote region. Frequently the view stretched for miles down the valley with no sign of human settlement apart from the odd cow here or there, quietly munching away on some grass. Aside from the trucks roaring past, it was tranquility at its finest.

And for the third day in a row, the weather decided to be kind to us by raining in places where we weren’t! What was very interesting though was how the weather changed as we changed altitude. Higher up it became very much colder, fresher, and cloudier, while down in the valley it was typically hot and humid with clear skies. During the last few hours of the drive, we could see massive lightning flashes in the distance, but somehow clear skies above us…it was a wonderful feeling! Couple this with a generally good road surface and fluid progress, and you have a very happy team RGE!

So, after 14 hours on the road (including lunch, changes in our police escort and other quick stops) we arrived in Bogota at around 11pm. We headed to the KPMG office to park and charge the SRZero, after which we headed to our accommodation for the next few days. What we have found out is that it is by far way cheaper and more enjoyable to rent an apartment than stay in a hotel. This is what we did in Cartagena, and what we are also doing in Bogota for the 4 days that we’re here. And, courtesy of KPMG, this is how we found ourselves in the most amazing penthouse ever! This is where I am writing this blog; in front of a huge window overlooking Bogota, and all of us in the team feel so privileged to be treated in such a way and to be able to have the experience of such an incredible trip!

In summary, the day went just as planned and was, despite the long hours of driving and dangerous conditions, extremely enjoyable. The car performed flawlessly and made it in to Bogota with around 10% less and surprising us in the process! Along with the very eco driving styles of Nik and Clemens, it was clear that the car’s extremely high efficiency both when driving and regen-ing (regenerative breaking) contributed to this feat of endurance. We can safely say that no other electric car has completed the Medellin to Bogota route, and we would like to challenge people to try it…if there’s anyone in Colombia with a Tesla, give it a go and let us know how it goes! It’s a fantastic drive!

And on a completely separate note, all of us are completely falling in love with Colombia. This trip has completely shattered our preconceived notions of this country, and the people, scenery and general atmosphere is incredible! There are still problems here of course, but it seems like the country is really making strong strides to combat this. All in all, a really positive and enjoyable day!

After a quick breakfast, we headed off to the EAFIT university where our car had charged overnight. Well, it was supposed to have charged overnight, but yet another mischievous circuit breaker had decided to try and cause us trouble. Fortunately however, we weren’t going to be driving anywhere today as we were spending the day at the university. All the car needed to do was to drive around the campus and look pretty, and despite its long drive yesterday, it had plenty enough juice to do that!

Firstly, we brought the car out of the university’s smart workshop, and drove it round to the centre of the campus to allow the press to do interviews and for anyone interested from the university to ask questions about the car. KPMG also turned up and, as always, the team thoroughly enjoyed talking to everyone about the project. Some people ask if we ever get tired of answering the same questions day in and day out…the answer is a categoric no! The whole point of the project is to get our message out there to as many people as possible, and if they care enough to ask, we are delighted to answer!

This chatting and media session lasted until lunchtime whereby we headed off for a delicious local meal with Juan Fernando and others from the university. This was very enjoyable, and was followed up by a presentation made to staff and students about the project and trip so far. It was very well received, and it was clear that the university felt there was a big similarity between what we’re doing and what they’re doing. How similar our situations actually are was about to come clearer a little later on.

Meanwhile, while myself, Andy and Toby were presenting, Nik was getting his hands dirty in the workshop making a new radiator fan mount for some new fans. The reason for this is that way back when we were building the car, we were sponsored some exceptionally good fans from EBMPapst; a leader in fan technology. However, the lead time was very long, and we had to substitute them for some cheap computer fans until we managed to get the new fans shipped out to us while we were on the trip. These cheap ones actually worked extremely well, from the gravel roads of Alaska all the way to the jungles of Colombia. However, they were really struggling to sufficiently cool the radiator on our steep drive up the Andes, so we swapped them for these uber-fans, and tomorrow will be the real test as we make our way up to Bogota, which includes a climb of nearly 2km!

Anyway, after the presentation and a short break in which to grab some drinks and catch up on some emails, we were invited on a tour of the engineering facility. Set inside a large, open and very attractive campus, the engineering building stood slightly separate from the rest. The building itself was absolutely stunning; modern, well built and extremely well laid out. Upon entering the workshop on the ground floor though, we really had our breath taken away. The facilities were absolutely incredible, with literally millions of dollars of high tech machinery on the shop floor, and topped off with state of the art computer, design and prototyping facilities.

The whole tour, served to make one thing abundantly clear; Colombia, and Latin America as a whole, are really on the rise! If the developed countries want to maintain their competitive advantage, they had better start investing in a very big way in engineering and technology education, because a glance at some of the projects that these students are doing, and a glimpse into the automotive research group’s activities showed that this part of the world is rapidly improving its technology and creative capabilities. All I can say is watch out, these guys are getting themselves very well organised!

Next up we were given a presentation by the head of the design engineering course, and leader of the automotive research group. What was instantly clear was the passion and desire they have for not merely importing electric vehicles into Colombia, but designing them and building them here as well. In the exact same way us as, they are exceptionally keen to help change the public’s perception of electric vehicles because here, in a city with a high level of air pollution and very low electricity costs, electric vehicles make so much sense. In addition, they recognise the necessity of inspiring people to do something about these challenges, and so the students at EAFIT are really encouraged to come up with creative automotive solutions.

When the university started the automotive project in 2003, they had a lot of detractors saying that Colombia had never been involved in the manufacturing of vehicles, and hence shouldn’t start doing so now. Yet they pushed on with a drive rarely seen in large institutions, and they succeeded in developing a whole series of really novel vehicles which they showed us. I really take my hats off to these guys, and I admire them for what they are doing.

The end of the presentation signalled the end of a very enjoyable day, and after putting the car back on charge (this time with a different circuit breaker!) we headed back to the hotel for a quick shower followed by a delicious meal with some of the university students.

Once again I must reiterate how impressed we were with this university and with what they are doing in the field of electric vehicles. I really wish them the best of luck with their endeavours, and it is my sincere hope that we can work with them in some capacity in the future. I strongly feel that they represent a new type of Latin America which has so much potential to fulfil…best of luck guys, and thanks a ton for hosting us!