von Amelie Niehaus
For the eighth time already a team of PHOENIX CONTACT took part in the WAVE Trophy. This time through West and South Germany. The WAVE is the biggest eMobility rallye of the whole world.
Facts about the WAVE Trophy
WAVE is an acronym that stands for “World Advanced Vehicle Expedition”. Since nine years the WAVE takes place. Sometimes two or three times a year.
Louis Palmer is a swiss landsman and figurehead of this rallye. He was the first human who rounded the entire earth by driving a solar- powered car. You could say that he is an ace in eMobility who is priced with several awards. Even the United Nations appealed to him he should keep standing up for eMobility. And that’s why he came with the idea of the WAVE with the aim to bring people closer to eMobility and its advantages. The very first WAVE took place in 2011. That rallye started in Paris and ended two weeks later in Prag. At that time with some prototypes and a lot of adventurous spirit. The cars have changed by time and also people became more and more fascinated by eMobility and how fast it developed with the years.
PHOENIX CONTACT and WAVE
Like already mentioned for PHOENIX CONTACT it was not the first time taking place in this exciting rallye. This time it was up to Jana Schwarze and Alexandra Kerps to bring home the trophy. These two 21 years young ladies who make and apprenticeship to become industrial clerks applied for this rallye to join as the team of PHOENIX CONTACT. Until they were chosen as the new team, they knew nothing about eMobility. And now they are kind of little experts regarding to eMobility. As their car with which they drove the rallye they got a Volkswagen eGolf with 136 HP. His name is E-Mil- tiny hint to eMobility of course. That’s at least how Jana and Alex described their emission-free team member.
WAVE Highlights
There were so many interesting adventures that our two girls experienced during the WAVE. We want you to get to know some of the best experiences they have had. First of all they were impressed by the fact that even if they attended a RALLYE they got to experience soo much team spirit during it. They kept together and helped each other even without asking for help.
Of course all the teams had various cars and it was interesting to see how different those were. Even if E-Mil is our little “speedy” we have to admit that there were some cars who were so much faster. Jana and Alex got a chance to sit in the Jaguar iPace who was driven by the former Formel1 star Heinz-Harald Frentzen who also attended the rallye. Another interesting car was the Tesla. It is such an impressive and futuristic car. Alex and Jana reportedly said that the feeling and silence while driving with an electric car was so much more fun and a completely different way of driving. You feel so much more relaxed and are able to enjoy the landscape even more. Especially for the fact that they didn’t use highways to get to every destination they could soak up the beauty of the different landscapes.
What they also didn’t expect to see was that they could “feed” E-Mil via charging stations made by Phoenix Contact! It was nice to see that you can find them everywhere in Germany where you would not even expect to find them. Another interesting fact about the WAVE is that at some of the many destinations our girls got to meet younger children to show them how an electric car works – and those were so fascinated when making a test drive they didn’t want to get out of E-Mil :D. But for Jana and Alex it was nice to see that even those little humans are interested in alternative means of transport.
Happy Runners-Up
As you can already tell by this headline our eYoungsters and E-Mil couldn’t win the whole rallye…. But even though they didn’t win the trophy they were not sad about it. The two young ladies were so happy they could drive this rallye and gain awesome experiences. But we have to tell you that they won one of the stages and which is even more important: Jana and Alex were honored for the best blog and won the trophy for Team spirit – well deserved! They’ve done everything the right way!
Let’s get rid of some “old” prejudices towards EMobility
One of the most important reasons why the WAVE exists is that the participants should figure out whether driving an electric car is suitable for an everyday use or not. If you would now ask Jana and Alex they would definitely say: Yes! E-Mil has enough range of battery to bring everyone safe to work and back home again. Statistics say that people drive on average 50 kilometers to get to work. Which is doable with almost every electric car. And at work you have the opportunity to reload the battery of your environment-friendly car. Because some people are worried that there are not enough charging stations we can tell you: No. That is absolutely not true! You can reload the battery of your electric car with every socket that you can find. You just have to have the right cable and plug for that.
In most cases you will get those when buying your car. And some companies like Ikea or Kaufland even offer their customers to recharge the battery for free! At home you can recharge your car wherever you want to. If you have an “usual” socket or a high voltage socket – your car is fine with both! So are you now convinced to buy an electric car next time? We think so ????.
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