#wave2013

The last day of the WAVE began with another highlight: The Umweltarena in Spreitenbach welcomed us to their fantastic world of science and sustainable technology. Teams and participants of the tour of open doors used the opportunity to explore this exhibition of green technologies. On several floors there were a lot of stations with experiments to understand the principles of different technologies. In the middle of the arena is a small test track where visitors can test drive electric vehicles. Noteworthy: The Umweltarena offers free charging in their parking garage for visitors any time!

Next stop was the town of Aeugst am Albis which impressed with its amazing landscape. We didn’t expect finding such a gorgeous place just a few kilometres outside from Zurich!

It was time for lunch at Horgen a small town at wonderful Lake Zurich. With the temperature almost at 30 degrees Celsius we were happy to find that Horgen had put up a big tent. That gave the teams the chance to take a break from the sun before crossing Lake Zurich.

Just like teams did at the Tour de Sol 25 years ago, we took our electric vehicle on the ferry to Meinen to cross the Lake Zurich and go to Küsnacht. Not only was Küsnacht the final destination of the day but also the finals station of the WAVE 2013.

We did it! At 4 p.m. the WAVE teams reached the final destination in Küsnacht. We have travelled more about 1,900 kilometres from Vienna to Zurich. We crossed the Alps with our vehicles solely powered by electricity. We visited dozens of places and showed the people that electric cars and bikes are here to stay!

At the final award ceremony first the results of the last three competitions were announced: The award for the most efficient Team was won by Team Twike. The award for the best blog went to Team Just Married and the most popular car was the Tesla Roadster from Team ZeroCarbonWorld.

Based on the points collected throughout the competitions and the penalty points the ranking of teams had been determined.

 And the winners are:

1. Team Phoenix Contact

2. Team Metron Institute and Team Austria’s Green Sportscar

3. Team Rafael de Mestre

Congratulations to those teams and all the others that made from Vienna to Zurich!

Finally the day had come to set a new record for the longest parade of electric vehicles in the world. More than 400 people had registered their vehicles in advance to be part of this unique event. Some supporters had already joined the WAVE teams the night before during our last stop in Baden.

When we arrived in Zurich about 8 a.m. our event was only about to start, since other obviously just had ended their partying at the Züri Fäscht. Litter was lying around and local services busy cleaning up. But one street had been reserved for our world record attempt and the number of cars arriving rose quickly. Until the start at 10 a.m. at least 388 vehicles had arrived from Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France and other countries. A variety of models and car types were present: Tesla Roadster, mia electric, Smart fortwo electric drive, BMW ActivE, Tesla Model S, Twike, City EL, Sinclair, Fisker Karma, Opel Ampera, Chevrolet Volt, Renault Kangoo, Renault Zoe, Renault Twizy, Porsche eRuf, Rimac Concept One, Nissan Leaf, Peugeot I-On, Citroen C-Zero, Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Renault Fluence, Sam  and many more. Especially the number of Teslas (>50) was sheer amazing!

The parade was started with an Alphorn at about 10.10 a.m. The police helped to control the traffic, because the trams were still in service and we crossing our path. But soon, everybody realized that we not only established the longest EV parade but also the longest traffic jam with electric cars.

After about two hours everybody had made its way to the turning point and back. We counted 388 vehicles but it now it is time to get these results official y verified.

After a rainy night and our uncommon accommodation in a bunker the teams had more time than usual because the starting time was 11 a.m. The teams used the time to work on their blogs, clean their cars or simply to sleep longer and have a late breakfast for a change.

To get to our first destination Lenzerheide we had to climb another pass. On the way over the Albula pass (2.312 m) we were joined by a television crew from Swiss television. On the pass we had plenty of chances to get great footage from our vehicles. In Lenzerheide we had our lunch break and about two hours of charging time. As most of the teams realized later, charging would not have been necessary. On the last stage to Arosa the teams had to go downhill first and which gave back a lot of energy through regenerative breaking. We know of some teams that even were using air condition and heating to burn some energy and by this saving the breaks.