Shamwari unveils its first electric safari vehicle

Shamwari unveils its first electric safari vehicleThank you to News24 for this article from two years ago.

 Shamwari Private Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape has revealed a completely off-grid ‘green’ game reserve experience. Shamwari Game Reserve in conjunction with key partners have unveiled their first electric safari vehicle, which is hoped to help make the safari experience greener and more sustainable.

I have been thinking for a while that electric vehicles would be ideal for safari/game reserves. They are quieter than diesel and petrol engines so they are less likely to startle the wildlife and tourists can enjoy the sounds of nature instead of the sounds of an internal combustion engine. Also there are no emissions, so again tourists and animals can enjoy fume free air.

Shamwari also said the deployment of a dedicated car port housing a solar array at Shamwari will provide the ideal renewable source of energy for charging the vehicles.

This is something I've touched on before in articles here and here. Electric vehicles and solar charging make so much sense in remote areas. There's no need to go to the expense of transporting and storing petrol or diesel and with solar charging there's also no need to be on the electricity grid. You can literally operate an electric vehicle anywhere that gets a reasonable amount of sunlight, without the need to bring in any sort of energy source.

Most game viewing vehicles usually do relatively short distances so range shouldn't be an issue. Game drives happen mostly in the cool of the early morning and then in the late afternoon when the wildlife is most active. During the middle of the day when the vehicle is not active and the sun is at it's strongest, it can recharge via the solar carport.

It'd be interesting to find out what other game reserves, if any, have also gone the EV route.