Electric car enthusiast completes Holland to Australia drive powered by 1600 volunteers

Finish line: Wakker's electric car travelled 60000 km to Sydney in 687 days. Photo / Supplied

The incredible journey took Dutch man Wiebe Wakker 687 days 31 countries 60000 km to complete.

Stopping off every 200 km to charge his electric car didn't make planning the route any easier.

But the aim of his 'Plug Me In' project was to fuel interest in a new generation of greener road trips and prove that nowhere is out of reach for electric vehicles.

Driving from his native Holland to Australia, Wakker parked up over the finish-line in Sydney yesterday.

"At 3pm I arrived at the Botanic Garden and there were a lot of people waiting for me," wrote Wakker. "It was pretty insane!"

People power: 1600 volunteers signed up to help get Wakker and his car to Sydney. Photo / Supplied

To complete his journey he relied not only on the converted electric Volkswagen named Blue Bandit but also the generosity of people around the world.

Apart from the final destination of Sydney, everything else was up in the air.

The final route came about by knitting together the locations of supporters registered via the plugmeinproject.com website.

He relied upon a network of 1600 people who volunteered a power plug and a place to sleep for the night.

"I never planned the route, the route is planned along the way from offers I received along the way," he told Radio New Zealand.

The route took him as far north as the Arctic Circle in Norway and right through the Australian outback.

EV evangelist: Wakker visits a home built electric vehicle project in Indonesia. Photo / Suppled

There were plenty of volunteers in places like South Africa or even Mongolia which the thirty-one-year-old EV evangelist never managed to visit.

Even though Wakker had only planned to travel as far as Sydney, there were still 29 kindly Kiwis who also offered a power socket. He'd come this far, after all.

It wasn't all an easy ride.

The 235km limit meant he sometimes had to wait for a tow to the nearest power outlet.

This happened a total of six times in Australia.

The Blue Bandit managed to drive 60,000km without a drop of petrol. Photo / Supplied

He also has a story of short circuiting a house in India that had kindly lent him a plug "and that caused one of the two chargers to explode," he said nonchalantly.

He says the lack of infrastructure is the one thing holding up the adoption of the electric vehicles.

EV in India: Driving though the busy roads of Mumbai. Photo / Supplied

Even though the initial cost of an electric car is high "the cost of maintaining an electric vehicle is very low, you will save also on fuelling your car because electricity is about one fourth of the price of petrol," he said.

"It took some effort but overall I had a pretty easy trip, made possible by hundreds of people who signed up on my website, offered help on the way or people online who reached out to help."