A brand new electric Land Rover arrived at Londolozi over Christmas. Courtesy of Barkers Performance Products and Land Rover, the electric vehicle was sent here to be put through a rigorous and rough field test owing to the success and pioneering development of Londolozi’s first three prototype electric Land Rovers. Having unveiled this new product at South Africa’s Tourism Indaba in May, Land Rover and Barkers Performance product have created a hugely impressive vehicle and when it arrived on our doorstep just before Christmas, we simply had to put it to the test!

The Electric Landrover runs off an Air cooled AC Induction Motor with 330Nm of Torque and 59kW of Motor Power.  The batter is comprised of Air cooled Lithium Phosphate and has a voltage of 300V.  Ranging from 80km per battery on the open road and +20km through a game reserve, the vehicle is able to offer a game drive of approximately 8 hours.  The gear stick features Drive, Neutral and Reverse with 4WD and Low Range.

Although we are testing the vehicle over a number of weeks, we decided to examine the performance through a few different disciplines: Acceleration & Speed; Gradient; Silence and Sand.

Londolozi has been at the forefront of pioneering the first ever Zero Emissions Safari Vehicle. The vision for this vehicle is to run purely on batter power which in turn is charged by solar panels. The carbon output would thus be zero, except for that used during the manufacturing of the vehicle.  Since 2009, when we unveiled our first prototype electric Landrover, the journey has been extremely fun yet also challenging. Our second prototype burnt down soon after completion, owing to an electric failure.  Yet with the help of Anton Komar and Sid from Green Rover we managed to achieve a reasonable level of success with our prototype number 3.

Our intention at Londolozi is to continue to be a leader towards a truly Zero Emissions Safari Vehicle and change our entire fleet to electric vehicles as soon as the opportunity presents itself.  This initiative, in particular, forms part of our broader goal to dramatically minimize our carbon footprint on the environment.