🐻‍❄️ A new EV for polar bears

Frontiers North Adventures unveiled what it claims to be the first electric vehicle Tundra Buggy.

The first electric Tundra Buggy is here. It’s all in this subscriber-only Musk Reads+ 118.

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On November 20, Canadian tourism firm Frontiers North Adventures unveiled what it claims to be the first electric vehicle Tundra Buggy. The machine, a retrofitted version of one of its existing buggies, will be used to take tourists around the subarctic tundra in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area at the far north of Canada to see polar bears up close.

The vehicle is emblematic of how electrification is spreading. Global plug-in vehicle sales reached a record 721,000 registrations in November 2021 alone, nearly doubling year-over-year. Battery prices have also dropped: BloombergNEF research shows that the cost of a lithium-ion battery in 2010 was $1,100 per kilowatt-hour. By 2020, that figure had dropped to just $137.

The prevalence of battery technology has encouraged new projects like electric semi trucks, snow bikes, boats, and more.

With the EV Tundra Buggy, clean energy will power more imaginative trips than ever before, getting up close with polar bears in the subarctic tundra. It could also aid scientific research thanks to the company’s 22-year partnership with Polar Bears International.

“When a polar bear walks up to the Tundra Buggy, stands up, and puts its paws on the side…we call that buggy love,” Jessica Burtnick, manager of marketing and communications for Frontiers, tells Inverse. 

The new vehicles could help protect the home of these majestic bears.

“These are ecosystems we care about, and that we want to be able to preserve for future generations,” she says.

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