Four Citroën AMI will cross Africa in complete autonomy

This initiative around the small Citroën AMI is credited to Eric Vigouroux, a former Rally-Raid driver and Africa enthusiast.

How does one decide to embark on a journey across the African continent from North to South in a Citroën AMI, a small electric car designed strictly for urban use? After 20 years of competition, Eric Vigouroux decided to hang up his gloves, considering his passion at odds with the environmental issues of our time. But Rally-Raid is above all a human adventure, and the call of the great outdoors must have certainly beckoned him.

In 2018, he built a first solar buggy with a group of students from the University of Applied Sciences in Bochum, Germany. A year later, he entered it in an attempt to break the record for crossing the Simpson Desert in Australia, using only solar energy. It was in 2022, after reading the account of the Black Cruise, that he thought it would be nice to celebrate the centenary of this great odyssey, but this time with ultralight electric vehicles. The project of The Green Cruise was launched.

For a Green Africa

The Green Cruise will set off from Paris on the occasion of the Paris Motor Show on October 16. A convoy will depart for Marseille, from where the expedition will board a ferry to the port of Tangier in Morocco. The official departure of the expedition will take place on October 28, 2024, exactly 100 years after the departure of André Citroën’s Black Cruise. It will cover a total distance of over 14,000 km and is expected to arrive in mid-January in Cape Town, South Africa.

The expedition’s vehicles will charge their batteries at all existing renewable energy production sites. An onboard solar kit will also generate the electricity needed to ensure the expedition progresses in complete autonomy and under all circumstances.

The Green Cruise will consist of 4 Citroën AMIs to carry the essential equipment for this expedition (solar kit, spare parts, tools, food, water…). Each of the four AMIs engaged has been specifically prepared by the technical teams of Vaison Sport, a specialist in Rally-Raid, to take on this challenge. These particular models have been maximally lightened, are equipped with off-road tires, and have an extended range of 250 km compared to the original 70 km.

Mobiwisy will, of course, follow this incredible adventure and wishes safe travels to these wonderful adventurers, who may be a bit quirky but that only makes them more likable and fascinating.

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