We set off on a epic journey Craig Tonge and Jan-Bart Spang
On the 25th May 2017 RZOC set off on a amazing journey for the charity Myton Hospice, With drivers Craig & Jan-Bart driving a fully electric car from the UK to Austria doing this with only stopping for charging so seeing us cover over 1000+ miles in one go without an over night stay,
At 00:30 25th May 2017 we set off from Coventry and started making our way down to the channel tunnel.
The journey seen us travel through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria and stopping at a total of 19 charging stations on the way.
Our calculation worked out we would arrive in Austria after about 8pm Friday evening, But whilst on route things started looking amazing and time was getting less, What encounted was a network of chargers that were 100% reliable and this made us feel so confident to push our Renault Zoe further with distance between chargers.
The whole trip out to Austria was perfect and without any issues and we manage to arrive at 10:30 Friday Morning seeing us travel 32 hrs none stop. Yeap we made it…
During our stay we met with the Austrian Zoe Owners Club who invited us as part of this charity trip and there support for us was amazing and without there support and help this trip would have been even harder, On arrival we were greeted with Austrian members like royalty the members kept coming to have photos and interviews we were the stars of the whole weekend.
On Staurday the Austrian Zoe Club had organised a very successful event in Salzburg called Treffen 2017 which is a large Electric Car event, They had arrange for the whole of Salzburg to be shut down for a electric car drive through only and we were involved right at the front of the convoy of over 150+ electric cars it was amazing.. Later in the afternoon we did a presentation for the 100+ people attending and promoted the trip to raise some more money for Myton Hospice and we thanked all of you all for your support.
In the evening during our meal we were called up to the front and presented with a huge hamper and t-shirts for the longest traveled to the meet covering 917 miles also given honoury membership for life.
Sunday was our travel home and we left at 10am after our goodbyes to all and our aim was to stop over halfway for a night of rest and catch our train back Monday at 4pm, Oh how wrong were we… Dealy after delay in traffic seen us stuck for 5-6 hours maybe more so this has eaten our sleep time and rest, So we had to make the decision to drive to Calais and hope to get some rest there so we don’t miss our train.
Well we arrived in Calais at 09:45 after none stop driving again.. So now for some rest. ? nope as we pulled up the system offered us a early train which was leaving in 45 mins oh my… So we had a quick charge for 15 mins and hopped onto the train to carry on in the uk to arrive home at 4pm 6 hours early than planned,
So as you can see we had an amazing trip and this was only possible with all your help and RZOC Myself and Jan-Bart would like to say a huge thankyou for your support in this Charity Road trip, We have raised so far £1277 on just giving and £600 from Austria in cash total over £1800 which is amazing. Also we now hold the record for longest ever none stop trip in one go in a Renault Zoe 22kw with two drivers,
There will be a video on Youtube very soon with the whole journey covered and we hope you will enjoy watching it as we enjoyed filming it,
Thank you so much.
Craig & Jan-Bart