Cardiff will kickstart the UK’s most prestigious electric vehicle (EV) rally today.
The EV Rally 2023: Capital City Challenge will see over 50 EVs take on more than 1,200 miles with major checkpoints in London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin. Each participating team has to plot its own route to every checkpoint, while also planning in enough pit stops to keep their vehicle’s batteries charged. In this way, the rally will be a major showcase of both the capabilities of EVs and charging infrastructure in the UK and Ireland.
Sponsored by Lex Autolease, the event aims to build on the success of last year’s GB EV Rally from John O’Groats to Land’s End, which also included a checkpoint in Cardiff. For the first time this year, the rally will include electric trucks along with cars and vans.
The EV Rally is organised by specialist media and events group GreenFleet, which has been helping the public and private sectors to adopt greener vehicles since 2000.
Colin Boyton, event manager at GreenFleet and founder of the rally, said: “We are delighted to be back in Cardiff after receiving such a warm welcome for the GB EV Rally last year.
“The iconic Cardiff Barrage is the perfect starting point for what we expect will be an extremely challenging yet rewarding five-day journey for all our participating teams. Following the successful introduction of electric vans in 2022, we are once again raising our game by adding HGVs to this year’s rally, another industry first.
“Including the various vehicle classes will enable us to really showcase how they perform over longer distances and crucially how the charging infrastructure performs in terms of supporting them.”
On Monday (3rd July) more than 50 vehicles will gather on the grid and officially start the rally by crossing the Cardiff Barrage. This is followed by checkpoints in Bristol, London, Kettering and Leicester before day one ends in Nottingham. The five-day rally moves through England, Scotland and Northern Ireland before concluding in Dublin on Friday (7th July).
