Using electric vehicles while on holiday

Electric vehicles mean less disturbance to tranquil settings. No more clanking jeeps belching their way through the bush on safari. No more roar of the snowmobile through pristine Alpine wilderness. No more juddering hum of passing ferries in lochs and fjords. Noise pollution isn’t just bothersome to people of course. It has a range of negative impacts on wildlife and is known to affect breeding patterns. So beyond the obvious environmental benefits, more electric vehicles equals more breeding, equals more wonderful wildlife for us all to enjoy.

You won’t encounter many electric vehicles (EVs) on your holidays just yet though. While electric cars are becoming much more common in driveways, they make up only a small part of car hire fleets. The gentle purr of an electric battery is still a rarity on the plains of Africa, and it will be a while before the silent glide of electric boats replaces the putter of a petrol engine in the Kerala backwaters.

Much of the reason for that is cost – though the savings on fuel can massively outweigh the price of an EV over time, they still require a big investment. There’s also the fact that there simply aren’t many EVs available yet. Electric snowmobiles and ferries don’t have the mass market appeal of electric cars and bikes, or the glamour of electric planes, so there is less investment going to them. Demand for some types of EV far outstrips supply. “The most difficult part about buying an electric van was getting hold of one,” says Zeljko Kelemen, founder of our partner Huck Finn Adventures. “We were told to expect up to a 400-day wait for some models! And the technology is still being developed so we had to settle for a smaller vehicle than we wanted for now.”

But, many of the amazing companies that we partner with are looking into how they can get their travellers from A to B more sustainably. Already we’ve been able to remove most jet flights of under an hour from our holidays. From Iceland to Albania, Morocco to Sweden, our friends can help you get to your holiday conveniently and comfortably over land, without ever setting foot in an airport. And some, such as Huck Finn Adventures, are going electric.

“The biggest attraction of the places we visit in Croatia is that they’re so clean and green, and we want to keep them that way,” says Zeljko, who named the company after his boyhood hero. “Part of how we do that is by investing in electric vehicles. They don’t pollute as much, they’re quiet, and they’re convenient because everywhere we go we only have to make short transfers, so we don’t need to worry about charging.”

While those of us who try to go greener at home might find it harder and more expensive to stick to those principles on holiday for the time being, there are lots of very interesting, and innovative, things going on with EV development. Give it another five, seven years, and some of these might start to become commonplace.

Electricity… and water. Is that such a good mix? Well, ensuring safety is part of the reason why the electric boat revolution has barely cast off and is still bobbing around in the harbour. But with charging networks unfurling along coastlines and technology such as hydrofoil (which lifts the hull out of the water, reducing resistance) improving efficiency, things are picking up speed. How long before island-hopping around Croatia, Greece and Scotland can be done in all-electric boats?

Currently the longest range for electric boats is just over 100km, so electrified fishing fleets and ocean-going cruises are still years away. But there are plenty of signs that show the direction of travel. The intention is for all of Amsterdam’s sightseeing canal boats to be electrified by 2025. That probably won’t do much for congestion on Prinsengracht, but at least the queuing will be quieter and less polluting. And since 2020 all of the famous Maid of the Mist boats at Niagara Falls have been electric too, the better to appreciate the awesome roar of the falls in full flow.

In Croatia, Huck Finn are adding electric motors, batteries and solar panels to their cruising catamarans. “At the moment we have a hybrid catamaran, using diesel and wind power,” says Zeljko. “But now we have EU funding to add electric motors which we can charge using solar power when at sea. We’ll be testing them this coming season. Obviously solar is not enough to fully charge the batteries, but it should be enough at least that we can split the power between solar, wind and diesel.”

Eeeeeee – eeeeeeeeeeeeee

The buzzing of tiny tuk tuk forms a never-ending soundtrack to life on the city streets of Thailand, Bangladesh, Nigeria and India. Otherwise known as auto rickshaws, tuk tuks are ubiquitous throughout Asia and parts of Africa – we even had a small fleet of them here in Brighton, UK for a while. But while they might be the most exciting way to get around sightseeing in Bangkok, Cairo or Delhi, tuk tuks have small, gas-guzzling engines that make a racket and belch out fumes that pollute the air.

Now, however, travellers in Thailand can enjoy fossil fuel-free fun. Urban Mobility Tech, the makers of the Muvmi brand, say they already have 500 electric tuk tuks purring along the roads, and they plan to increase that to 5,000 by 2028, complemented by the growth of a kingdom-wide charging network. Given that Thailand often suffers badly from air pollution, that’s brilliant news.