On Wednesday, crews for the 2011 e-miglia took on the demanding 267km route to Bolzano via the Glossglockner High Alpine Road (1700m in altitude) and then descend to Bolzano in the valley.
The rally’s manager Richard Schalber stated as the stage was about to get underway: “The local power supply system with our provisional power lines couldn’t withstand the drain of the current peaks. This led to an outage during the night and 13 vehicles couldn’t be re-charged according to the regulations, so that they have only reached part of their charging capacity even after the specified charging time. For fairness reasons, the rally management has decided not to call any assessment stages, but to count today as a transfer stage.”
What reportedly followed from the crews was: silence, amazement, incomprehension, horror.
The royal stage is being omitted? No. Most of the vehicles still embarked on the planned route to Glossglockner. “We’ll manage to get up there and down – we’ll always be able to go,” said crews to event organisers. It’s up to the participants to choose the route to Bolzano and to utilise other charging possibilities on the way, if necessary.
The special stage at the foot of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road did get started. A 12.7km uphill was to be driven in 15 minutes, and they headed to Edelweissspitze at 2571 meters above sea level. This was no easy task, since this scenic route also attracts numerous visitors who got in the way of the rally cars.
Ralf Schollenberger, Team Allianz Autowelt, said: “I had to really put the throttle to the metal to keep within the specified time. Even though it won’t be counted, I just had to know for myself.”
Competitive attitude was also adopted by Team Jetcar. Their vehicle approached the mountain with 89% of their battery capacity, but since its total range is 250km it was doable. The Jetcar is fast, but the inventor and co-pilot Christian Wenger-Rosenau said: “With today’s traffic, we sometimes had a bus ahead of us, and the given time we could only step on it. Our time was good and we’re really pleased with our current fourth place. This way we can at least hold on to that until tomorrow.”
On the Edelweissspitze it was clear, the day was a winner. The view from the peak across the Alps, the feeling of having done it and the great mood, let everyone quickly forget the morning scare.
Downhill and to the next charging station, it was 84km. The Peugeot iON only had 11km left in its battery pack and it wasn’t the only one on the limit. The Swiss Hosch in the iMiev only managed to reach the charging station “with God’s help”. Downhill, the batteries were able to be re-charged so that they were almost on full, but the route didn’t always go downhill. The last kilometers to the much desired P-Charge dragged on. On the last reserves, right before zero and a speed of around 30km/h, the so called tortoise mode, almost everyone made it to the charging stop. Re-charge, however, much is possible was the motto for man and machine, as well as a break to digest the experiences.
Once completed, the crews continued their way to Bolzano where a thunderstorm surprised the electrically operated troop at around 6pm. This was particularly hard for Michal Buse on the Raleigh Dover, the e-bike. Buse passed the leg with flying colors, leaving various well-trained racing cyclists in the dust on his way uphill and collecting money for the victims in Japan for each accomplished kilometre. He has the respect of every e-migliaisti.
The results:
1. Tim Ruhoff, Team Energiebau/NextGM, Tesla – the titleholder
2. Kurt Sigl, Team Bundesverband eMobilität, Tesla
3. Michael Huhn, Sonnenpflücker Racingteam, Citroen C-Zero
4. Lars Krüger, Team Jetcar, Jetcar
5. Fuzzy Walter Kofler, Team Autotest Motorsport, Think City
The facts of the 2nd daily stage of the e-miglia:
Total distance: 267km, uphill 94km with 4130 meters difference in altitude.
