Climbing to the heights of Mount Everest in an eVito Tourer.

Usually the Everesting Challenge is done on a bike. But now, Everesting has become somewhat of a sport in its own right, with its own scene, a version for runners and even a virtual variant. In our electric van version, we wanted to test whether one battery charge is enough for the eVito Tourer to theoretically conquer the highest mountain in the world. The reason we wanted to do this was because people often question the practicality of electric vehicles in terms of their range and usability for day trips and long-distance travel. So it was time for a reality check!

Long, particularly steep climbs with a good road surface are optimal conditions for this challenge. And we found those on the Riedberg mountain pass in the Allgäu Alps – with an altitude difference of 558 metres to tackle. That meant we had to go up and down the pass 16 times to reach the 8848 metres of Mount Everest. The number of kilometres to be covered was around 190, with a gradient of up to 16 % in places.

The eVito Tourer has a remarkable maximum range of XXX km^{1, 2} on just a single charge. However, the 190 km distance in our attempt to "climb Everest" shouldn't be considered in isolation from the various other range-reducing factors. This is because steep climbs and extreme temperatures, such as those found in these cold climes, also affect the battery's range. But the eVito Tourer has an ace up its sleeve to counteract this: the magic word for increasing its range is recuperation. The battery of the electric van "recovers" energy when the driver releases the accelerator when driving downhill. The kinetic energy released during rolling and deceleration is thus not lost in the form of heat – as would be the case with an internal combustion engine – but is instead recovered as electrical energy. In our version of the Everesting Challenge, up to 2/3 of the energy lost on the climb was able to be recovered on the downhill sections.

After around 5.5 hours, we were able to proudly announce that the Mercedes-Benz eVito Tourer had successfully mastered the Everesting Challenge. And even better than that: a single battery charge was more than enough – the eVito Tourer was still showing 35 % remaining battery charge after completing the feat. All thanks to recuperation. So for anyone who hears people saying that electric vehicles don't offer enough independence, they can now proudly say that the eVito Tourer can theoretically even reach the top of the world's highest mountain on just a single battery charge!