The first-ever drive from North to South pole is complete – and it was all-electric
After nearly nine months on the road, an all-electric Nissan Ariya has become the first vehicle ever, gas or electric, to drive all the way from North to South pole, piloted by Chris Ramsey of Plug in Adventures and his wife Julie.
The Scottish couple, who previously became the first to complete the Mongol Rally in an EV, set off from the magnetic North Pole in March in a modified Nissan Ariya, built with the help of Arctic Trucks, an Icelandic company that specializes in preparing vehicles for the most difficult conditions on Earth. The idea was to use the Ariya as a proof-of-concept for future EV mods, and potentially to eventually replace the diesel vehicles currently used for Antarctic research and expeditions.
But it’s not actually all that far off from stock – the biggest change is 39-inch tires which required modified wheel arches. Other than that, the powertrain and suspension are mostly stock (just lifted), with no gearbox change as would have been necessary on a gas or diesel vehicle. Several gear solutions were added, along with tow hitches and some frame and underbody reinforcement.
Arctic Trucks called the mod the “AT39,” but over the course of the trip, the couple adopted a new name for their Ariya: “Sonrisa,” the Spanish word for smile.
Now, in December, the couple has finally reached the South Pole after nine months and 17,000 miles of travails along the way. Nine months may seem like a long time but it was actually the original plan, a schedule necessitated by polar weather and the changing seasons – and by climate change as well.
The beginning of the trip was actually a rush job, hurrying to get the car to the North Pole and back along polar ice roads which closed abruptly this year due to melting – something that has been happening earlier and earlier lately with rising global temperatures.
The first part of the trip was constrained by needing ice in the Northern hemisphere winter, in order to even drive on ice roads that are impassable after the ice melts. And the last part of the trip relies on arriving to the South Pole in the Antarctic “warm” season, as polar expeditions are not allowed during winter when the extreme conditions at the pole become even more impossible to handle.
The original plan had been to use a trailer with a small windmill to charge the car while parked while in polar regions, but the trailer didn’t work out on Arctic roads. But for the Antarctic portion, the Ramseys have been using solar panels to help charge the car at “night” (which can be any time of day – the polar region is in constant sunlight at this time of year), in addition to using generators when the weather isn’t in their favor.
The trip through North America was relatively simple on big highways with plenty of chargers (and a quick stop to meet up with us, and the OC Tesla Club, in Long Beach), except that the Ariya was significantly less efficient after modifications. Between the huge off-road tires, fenders, and roof rack with rooftop tent, range was cut significantly.
But these range losses are part of the message that the Ramseys want to send, anyway. If they can make it all the way from one end of the globe to the other with a 150-200 mile range (down from the 272-mile rating of the Ariya), this shows that most people don’t “need” the huge range they claim they need.
After a brief trip around the uncrossable Darien Gap, it was on to a new continent. In South America there’s not nearly as much EV charging infrastructure (though Nissan dealers have provided plenty of juice), so the couple encountered several difficult situations, including broken chargers and long stretches of unpaved road. But the trip offered an opportunity to improve the region in that respect, so Pole to Pole cooperated with Enel X to install chargers along the route.
The couple visited a hybrid wind/solar farm in Chile and had plenty of new cultural experiences for a couple of Scots from the opposite side of the world.
Then it was off to Antarctica, saving the most challenging part of the trip for last. The couple met up with their pals from Arctic Trucks, who had provided support for the Arctic portion of the journey, and are also supporting the Antarctic portion. Antarctic expeditions can’t be done solo, and Arctic Trucks wanted to see how their modifications would fare in the tough conditions.
We’ve all heard that cold weather is meant to be challenging for electric vehicles, but Sonrisa has been successful at navigating temperatures down to -30º or below. But it took a little inventiveness, turning the elements in their favor by building small walls of snow to keep arctic winds from freezing the battery overnight.
The couple has also used a collapsible tent specifically for the vehicle to keep it warm while parked, which helps with charging efficiency. They’ve even occasionally parked the car inside their camp tent to share accommodations for the night, if weather conditions made setup too difficult.
Getting closer to the 90º mark, the altitude in Antarctica gets higher and higher. The South Pole itself is at 9,300ft, or 2,835m, which means that in addition to the cold, the expedition has to deal with thinner air and less oxygen. Not only is this hard on the bodies of the humans on the expedition, but fossil-powered vehicles have a hard time starting up in these conditions – a problem that the all-electric Ariya has not had any difficulty with.
And now, they’ve finally reached the pole (after some last minute encouragement from legendary soccer coach and fellow Ariya owner Pep Guardiola). The expedition actually reached the pole on Friday, but had to turn off their satellite communications when they approached the pole, so were only able to update the world about their successful finish today.
If you’d like to look back on their trip, there’s a live tracker where you can look back on some of the expedition’s updates, and the expedition’s Instagram page (@poletopoleev) has a history of all their updates since the beginning, or you can visit their linktree for more links.
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More than $14 billion in US renewable and EV investments and 10,000 new jobs have been scrapped or put on hold since January, according to a new analysis from E2 and the Clean Economy Tracker. The reason: growing fears that the Republican-majority Congress will pull the plug on federal clean energy tax credits.
In April alone, companies backed out of $4.5 billion in battery, EV, and wind projects right before the House passed a sweeping tax and spending bill that would gut the federal tax incentives fueling the clean energy boom. E2 also found another $1.5 billion in previously unreported project cancellations from earlier in the year.
Now, with the Senate preparing to take up the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” E2 says over 10,000 clean energy jobs have already vanished.
“If the tax plan passed by the House last week becomes law, expect to see construction and investments stopping in states across the country as more projects and jobs are cancelled,” said Michael Timberlake, E2’s communications director. “Businesses are now counting on Congress to come to its senses and stop this costly attack on an industry that is essential to meeting America’s growing energy demand and that’s driving unprecedented economic growth in every part of the country.”
Ironically, it’s Republican-led congressional districts – the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administration’s clean energy tax credits passed in 2022 – that are feeling the most pain. So far, more than $12 billion in investments and over 13,000 jobs have been canceled in GOP districts.
Through April, 61% of all clean energy projects, 72% of jobs, and 82% of investments have been in Republican districts.
Despite the rising number of cancellations, some companies are still forging ahead. In April, businesses announced nearly $500 million in new clean energy investments across six states. That includes a $400 million expansion by Corning in Michigan to make solar wafers, which is expected to create at least 400 jobs, and a $9.3 million investment from a Canadian solar equipment company in North Carolina.
If completed, the seven projects announced last month could create nearly 3,000 permanent jobs.
To date, E2 has tracked 390 major clean energy projects across 42 states and Puerto Rico since the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August 2022. In total, companies plan to invest $132 billion and hire 123,000 permanent workers.
But the report warns that momentum could grind to a halt if the House tax plan becomes law. Since the clean energy tax credits were signed into law, 45 announced projects have been canceled, downsized, or closed entirely, wiping out nearly 20,000 jobs and $16.7 billion in investments.
What’s more, Trump’s Department of Energy announced today that it was killing more than $3.7 billion in funding for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and decarbonization initiatives. Eighteen out of 24 projects were awarded through DOE’s Industrial Demonstrations Program (IDP), which was made law in the Inflation Reduction Act. It aimed to strengthen the economic competitiveness of US manufacturers in global markets demanding lower carbon emissions, while supporting US manufacturing jobs and communities.
Executive Director Jason Walsh of the BlueGreen Alliance said in a statement in response to today’s DOE announcement:
The awarded projects that DOE is seeking to kill are concentrated in rural areas and red states. American manufacturers are hungry to partner with the federal government to bolster US industry. The IDP saw $60 billion worth of applications during the program selection process, a ten-times oversubscription.
President Trump claims to be a champion of American manufacturing, but today’s announcement is further evidence that he and his Secretary of Energy are liars.
Read more: Global energy giant RWE halts US offshore wind because of Trump
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A Tesla prototype was spotted at the Fremont factory in California, sparking speculation that it’s the new “cheaper Tesla”, but it looks like a regular Model Y.
A drone operator flew over the Fremont factory this week and spotted a Tesla prototype with light camouflage on the front and back ends.
The vehicle is making a lot of people talk on social media and the media as many think it could be a new “affordable model” coming to Tesla.
Other than the camouflage, the vehicle looks just like a regular Model Y:
It’s likely one of two things: a new “stripped-down Model Y” or a Model Y Performance.
Model Y Performance is the only version that Tesla hasn’t launched since the design changeover earlier this year.
The “stripped-down Model Y” is what will replace Tesla’s upcoming “affordable models.”
We have been reporting on this new vehicle program from Tesla for a while now.
It came to life just over a year ago as a pivot for Tesla after CEO Elon Musk canceled two cheaper vehicles that Tesla was working on, commonly referred as “the $25,000 Tesla”. Those vehicles were codenamed NV91 and NV92, and they were based on the new vehicle platform that Tesla is now reserving for the Cybercab.
Instead, Musk saw that Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y production lines were starting to be underutilized as Tesla faced demand issues. Therefore, Tesla canceled the vehicles program based on the new platform and decided to build new vehicles on Model 3/Y platform using the same production lines.
We previously reported that these electric vehicles will likely look very similar to Model 3 and Model Y.
In recent months, several other media reports reinforced that, and Tesla all but confirmed it during its latest earnings call.
Considering this looks like a regular Model Y, it could be the new cheaper and less feature rich Model Y:
Some people are claiming that this vehicle looks smaller than the Model Y, but it’s difficult to tell as the black camouflage on the ends can confuse the eye.
It looks like a very similar size when it passes near other Tesla vehicles:
What do you think it is? Let us know in the comment section below.
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![Lumina hopes this 32-ton dozer makes them the Tesla of heavy equipment [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/05/lumina_2.png?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
San Francisco-based founder Ahmed Shubber wants to emulate Elon Musk’s success in the electric construction equipment world – and he hopes his new, 32-ton electric bulldozer is enough to make the world sit up and take notice.
Since launching his company, Lumina, in 2021, Shubber has raised more than $8 million and grown the company’s global (!?) headcount to 26 people. That fruit of that team’s labor is the machine seen here. Dubbed “Moonlander,” the first-of-its-kind prototype occupies the physical footprint of something like a Caterpillar D6, but packs the blade and performance of the larger, more powerful Cat D9.
“A D6 could not push that blade,” David Wright, Lumina’s head of UK operations, told the assembled media at the Moonlander’s launch last week. “We can have that blade full of material, full dozing seven to nine cubic meters of material, for eight to 10 hours.”
Moving all that mass takes a lot of power – but getting that power back into the Moonlander’s batteries won’t take a lot of time, thanks to the machine’s 300 kW charging capability.
“Even if you spend all morning heavy dozing and you’re a bit worried about how much juice you’ve used — well, your operators are going to take a union-mandated lunch break, right?” asks Wright. “Plug it in, and in 30 minutes, you’ve put 50% of power back in again.”
Shubber says Lumina is working to raise from $20-40 million for its Series A round to develop the company’s next electric equipment asset: a 100-ton electric excavator called Blade Runner. And, in a truly Tesla-like fashion, Shubber says he’s on track to hit an ambitious $100 million revenue target sometime in the next 24 months.
And, of course, the Blade Runner will feature state-of-the-art autonomous operating technology (because: of course it will).
We’ll see how that unfolds in 2 year’s time, I guess. In the meantime, check out this Lumina promo video for Moonlander, below, then let us know what you think of Shuber’s take on an electric job site in the comments.
Lumina ML6 electric dozer video
SOURCE | IMAGES: Lumina; via Business Insider, Earthmovers Magazine.
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