Solar car drives length of Britain with a fuel bill of 'nothing' in world first

Motoring adventurer Jeremy Hart, who was behind the wheel, said the appeal of solar motors is obvious due to rocketing fuel prices

07:24, 29 Jun 2026Updated 09:45, 29 Jun 2026

It was an incredible journey

A solar car has driven the length of Britain - with a fuel bill of nothing. The sun-powered vehicle, a standard Renault 4, went from Lands End in Cornwall to John OGroats in Scotland. And its the first production car to manage the feat after running without a drop of petrol or a single unit pulled from the grid.

Motoring adventurer Jeremy Hart, who was behind the wheel, said the appeal of solar motors is obvious due to rocketing fuel prices. He said: Were all in that boat, whether youre a millionaire or not.

No one wants to pay a penny more for fuel than they absolutely have to. And the fact that weve done this drive for free is bonkers. The same trip would set motorists back 120 in petrol one way. And would pump out around 78kg of CO2 in a petrol car.

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Charging the car was handled by firm Easee with the power coming from solar farms along the route. Easee boss Anthony Fernandez said: Electric vehicles and solar were made for each other. I think this journey proves exactly that.

The motor used just 276 kWh over the whole trip and reached the finish line when Scotland kicked off against Brazil in the World Cup last week. And the panels gathered enough sun to have turned round and driven all the way back to Cornwall again.

The Renault had a 300kWh power bank, built from second-hand electric car cells, which refilled the motor six times over. It fed the car through an Easee smart charger so every mile came from sunlight.

Speaking about his journey, Hart told the BBC: "We were very lucky, we only had one road closed on the journey which added about 25 miles but we had enough juice to get where we were planning to.

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"The biggest challenge actually came before we started, as low fog made it difficult to actually get to Land's End to start. We could charge but not as well as usual, but luckily the sun came out and we could charge up.

"We arrived at John O'Groats with 5% charge left on the car."

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