Antarctic solar EV expedition.
 

An Antarctic expedition is quite some challenge.
So what if you make it harder... being powered by solar only for a whole month?
And to build the vehicle base structure from waste material?
This couple just did that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEBmIwvXPt8

It isn't as crazy as it seems.
During autumn and winter it has permanent sunshine, and most of the time the sky is clear. The altitude also helps; the pack ice is miles high.

Waste plastic bottles were chipped, cleaned and molten into rods which were fed into an array of 3D printers, which made hexagonal building blocks from which they built the structure. Carbon plated it was strong and rigid enough to be practical.

While they did not reach the South Pole they basically showed it was possible with more time.
It does not stop there though. They actually showed that you don't need fuel to create drinking water, prepare food, etc; this can and probably will help other expeditions in the future.

Their decision to use bi-facial solar panels proved effective. The light that reflects off the ice contributes so much that the power the panels harvested often way exceeded what one side alone would produce in optimal conditions.

I'm blown away about what they did.

https://www.clean2antarctica.nl/en

24 hour sunshine. Not a bad idea.

I like how grassroots future-tech their car looks. But 8 km/h? I would die of boredom.

I hope it was at least partially self-driving.

The pack ice is no highway. There's crevices and ravines and you can't see them before you get really close.
Self driving could be lethal unless it recognizes trouble better than the human eye does.

Cold temps help the solar panels produce more, as well.

Antarctic solar expedition that didn't go to the antarctic.

Reminds me of the bear suit that didn't get used as a bear suit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWiPiks1sU

The point of the expedition was not so much to reach the South Pole, just to show that it is possible.
They've shown how much more can be done with green technology, especially in the Antarctic where supplies are extremely expensive.


(it went to the Antarctic all right. Just not to the pole. As it turns out, only a surprisingly small area of the Antarctic qualifies as 'South pole'.)