Gebrüder Weiss, an international transport and logistics company based in Switzerland, is apparently gearing up to send a solar-powered truck to the world’s highest volcano (Ojos del Salado in Chile), an ambitious plan with the goal of just being able to do it, performed by a team of explorers called Peak Evolution.
Seriously, that’s basically what the company said it’s trying to do. “If the team reaches the summit, this would be a new world record. Never before has a vehicle climbed that high,” the company said. I still can’t believe it.
“Our vehicle makes it possible to perform even the most demanding transport tasks, whether in mining or when erecting high-altitude solar power plants, in an environmentally compatible and economically efficient manner. The expedition is going to show the commercial viability of the product we developed,” head of finance and co-developer of the Peak Evolution team Patrik Koller said.
Peak Evolution said it wants to push the boundaries of ‘alternate-drive technologies’ (EVs), so this is a good way to do that.
Gebrüder Weiss is a logistics and transport company at the enterprise and supply-chain level – so sending a heavy-duty solar truck to the highest volcano on Earth is their bread and butter. The ‘e-truck’, as the company refers to it, was built by Aebi Schmidt group. It has been outfitted with two electric motors and can traverse a distance of 200km, with a 240kW output and 380 horsepower. 42 square metres of solar panels are outfitted on the truck, capable of a total of 7.4kWp output.
“Due to its limited payload capacity, this solar-powered vehicle cannot yet replace a conventional truck, but it shows a completely new direction in which we will be able to move with alternative drives in the future,” head of corporate brand strategy and communications at Gebrüder Weiss Frank Haas said.
Ojos del Salado in Chile is 6,893 metres above sea level. It’s considered an active volcano, with its last recorded activity being in 1993.
If you’d like to follow Peak Evolution on this mission, they’re documenting it on the team’s YouTube channel. The trailer shown above was first shown at Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Solar-powered vehicles aren’t a new thing – Australia is home to one of the coolest solar-powered EVs in the world, although 2023 has not been kind on solar-powered EV companies like Lightyear and Sono, which have had to scale back their plans.
I will be, however, looking on with great enthusiasm at Peak Evolution’s mission.
Image: Gebrüder Weiss/Anna Pocinska
Want more Aussie car news? Here’s every EV we’ve reviewed in the last two years, all the EVs we can expect down under soon, and our guide to finding EV chargers across the country. Check out our dedicated Cars tab for more.