- After having been the first zero emissions car to finish the Dakar, it will also be the first to the starting line of a FIA World Rally Championship European points trial race
- The race's pilots will be Germany's Andrea Peterhansel and France's Emma Clair
As a group leader in sustainable infrastructure solutions and renewable energy projects around the world, ACCIONA will participate in a European Rally -the Italian Baja- for the first time with its zero emissions car, the ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered, after having been the first electric vehicle to finish a Dakar. In this way, the ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered becomes the first completely electric car to participate in a European points trial race on the World Rally Calendar through the International Automobile Federation (FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies).
The 24th edition of the Italian Baja will be held between 15 and 18 June 2017, and will be made up of three, 800-kilometre stages in the north-west of the alpine country, where the gravel terrain makes this race one of the FIA World Championship's most exciting. This year, the Italian Baja will include a special category for electric vehicles that will début with the ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered, the only zero emissions vehicle competing in the European World Rally Championship, following its appearance at the Morocco Rally last season.
On this occasion, the race's pilots will be Germany's Andrea Peterhansel and France's Emma Clair (pilot and co-pilot, respectively). Peterhansel has participated in the Dakar on ten occasions in different modalities, and Clair is the Quad category Baja TT world champion. Ariel Jatón will also continue on as the project's technical director, and will train them in driving the vehicle that was able to reach the finish line at the 2017 Dakar, making history in the world of motor sport.
The ACCIONA 100% EcoPowered's participation in the Italian Baja shows ACCIONA's continued support in showing the power of non-polluting renewable energies compared to fossil fuels in the most demanding automobile racing conditions. The company meets this new sustainability challenge with its goal of testing the competitiveness of clean energy, and bringing visibility to the fight against the climate change referred to in the Paris Agreement.
In order to face this new extreme competition, fine-tuning was carried out on the vehicle's electronics systems, which had already shown their efficiency in the last edition of the Dakar.
