Associated Press GENEVA; Two drivers, three
wheels, $350 and zero carbon emissions. That’s how Australian
father-and-son team Nick and Jason Jones hope to circle the globe in
their custom built electric vehicle.
The duo joined teams from Germany and Switzerland today for the start of
a round-the-world race aimed at showcasing green technologies.
The aim is to complete the 30,000-km trip without pumping carbon into
the atmosphere, a goal that Louis Palmer, the race organiser, believes
can be done. Palmer should know. Two years ago the Swiss inventor and
former schoolteacher completed his own round-the-world trip in a
solar-powered taxi without using a single drop of gas.
“Technology has developed a lot since then,” Palmer told reporters as
the vehicles lined up at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva.
“These are capable of doing 500 kilometres a day.”
The race - which will be measured in points for style, technology and
popularity rather than speed - will pass through 150 cities, including
Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai, Los Angeles and Cancun, the Mexican resort
where governments are going to hold a global climate change meeting at
the end of November. Participants will charge their vehicles from
regular power outlets along the way, offsetting their consumption by
pumping electricity into the grid from solar and wind plants back at
home. |
