High altitude world record expedition

Peak Evolution, news from the ground

A journey to a place that no vehicle has ever reached. World record mission to the highest volcano on earth. To the top with electric power.

The Swiss Startup DDP Innovation has developed an electric 4×4 truck for commercial off-road operations. To promote and prove the technology of their vehicle, they want to set a new world altitude record reaching 6893 m high (22437 ft) in Chile – Ojos del Salado with a land vehicle, in a journey completely powered by solar.

The mobile solar plant with our devices has been operational since mid-2022. The expedition was planned for the end of 2023, starting at Salar de Maricunga, at 3700m to start with acclimatization. Then to the camp “Atacama” at 5200m, the base camp of Ojos del Salado, continuing with acclimatization. When the weather conditions were right, the team began to attempt to reach the summit in several daily operations.

DPP innovation with its off-road vehicle powered by our vt65 has set a world record in December 2023 for an electrical vehicle by climbing at 6510 meters above sea level in Chile at the Ojos de Salado. The team has broken the previous milestone for electric vehicles (set by an electric motorbike) by 500m and the record for electric four-wheeled vehicles by almost 1000m!

Once they had achieved these records, they were faced with the tough choice of starting to use their winch and entering risky terrain to beat the absolute record set by Porsche the previous day or keeping this incredible result. They chose not to climb higher with their prototype vehicle to avoid greater risk and preserve the fantastic Terren for future endeavours. The team is currently exploring that amazing region, do not hesitate to follow them on social media to keep track of their adventures.

We would like to offer them our biggest congratulations for achieving this record and all the best for their next adventures and the return to Switzerland.

We are very grateful for participating in this expedition and proving the reliability of our solutions in extreme conditions. We would like to thank the team, as we have a new altitude record at our end as well.

Join them in the adventure and find more information about their mission in https://peakevolution.ch

Some electrical challenges to overcome

3 major challenges were considered when looking for energy equipment for this type of mobile application.

The first challenge is charging the high voltage traction battery with solar energy taking into account that the closest power supply is 300 km (186 mi) away.

The second challenge is the ability to operate in harsh environments with highly volatile weather conditions (temperature, humidity, air pressure). For this, the reduction of dielectric strength of the air and the cooling strategy are key.

The third challenge is reliability and thus providing reasonable redundancy in case of component failure without penalizing the vehicle performance.

Studer, technical partner of the expedition

Our products were selected to support this expedition. The vehicle incorporates 5 solar charge controllers vt65. We were in contact with the development team during the design of the electric system.

The solar modules are divided into 5 strings of 4 panels each. One string is mounted on the vehicle roof and provides power constantly while 4 strings are laid out on the ground during the midday hours to charge the battery.

The maximum PV voltage is limited to 65V to avoid electrical breakdown inside the devices. The peak power is set to 1480Wp per vt65 because the system spends around two weeks at an altitude of 5000m. The 4 modules of each string are connected 2s2p and each string feed one vt65. The power is then converted from 24V to 300V by 2 Brusa BSC624 DC-DC converters.

Pictures credits © DDP innovation