Nissan Leaf has been one of the few practically successful electric vehicles on sale today. The puny little hatch is now all set to take on the adventure journey of a lifetime by participating in this year’s Mongol rally. The specially prepped electric Leaf would be the first electric vehicle to participate in this gruesome rally course when it flags off this July.
Based on the standard 30kWh Nissan LEAF Acenta, the rally prepped car is dubbed as Leaf AT-EV (All Terrain Electric Vehicle). There are no modifications to the powertrain, however, to make the puny EV survive the abuses of the pounding stages, the AT-EV Leaf is fitted with SL2 Marmora wheels wrapped around in Maxsport RB3 skinny tires. There are plates welded to the underside of the wishbones, along with braided brake lines, chunky mud flaps, and a 6mm aluminium sump guard. The rear seats have been ditched, saving almost 32kg, and making way for the fire extinguisher and medical kit. The roof rack is fitted with LED lights for night time thoroughfare. The modification is carried out by RML group, which is famous for doing crazy projects for Nissan.
This ‘adventure’ rally is not about sleek, powerful cars. In fact the primary criterion is for the car to be small and not very well maintained, thus making the rally tougher. Given that, the electric Leaf isn’t the car that comes to mind as a weapon of choice to navigate a rally stage of 16,000km. But Chris Ramsey of Plug In Adventures, who’ll be behind the steering wheel, says ‘the Leaf is the perfect car to do this rally in’.
With a daily average of 200-300km, the 250km claimed range of the EV doesn’t look too difficult, but finding a charging point at each stop would be a more challenging task than overcoming this difficult terrain.
