Epic Electric Car Journey Comes To An End After 42,000 Miles

May 3, 2016

KOA NEWS SERVICE (May 3, 2016) – After eight months and 42,000 long, slow miles, electric car pioneer Brian Kent is back home in Batavia, New York.

Kent, who’s journey was sponsored by Kampgrounds of America, completed his Negative Carbon Roadtrip in mid April, quietly rolling his 2013 Nissan Leaf into his hometown after crossing through 48 states and two Canadian provinces.

The trip was made all the more remarkable because he made the journey in 80-mile chunks. That’s about all his electric car could muster before needed a multiple-hour recharge.

“I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate to have been provided such a unique opportunity to see our country, and not the less for having the chance to introduce countless people to a technology that is no longer simply “around the corner,” he said.

Kent’s letter thanks all of the KOA campground owners and managers he met along the way.

“I wish I knew how to thank KOA enough for the instrumental role your organization played in making my dream a reality,” Kent said in the letter to Hittmeier. “Without KOA, it could not have happened.”

Kent said he saw his epic journey as a demonstration project to prove just what was possible using nothing but renewable resources. He ensured that his trip had a negative carbon footprint by planting a tree in each state he visited. Many of those trees can now be found growing on KOA campgrounds around North America.

“Being able to initiate a dialogue with thousands of people directly, and undoubtedly tens of thousands of people indirectly, about this technology was constructive in a way that can hardly be quantified,” Kent said. “KOA was a critical component of it happening at all.”

You can find out more about Kent’s Negative Carbon Roadtrip by visiting the project’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TheNegativeCarbonUSRoadTrip/, or at http://insideevs.com/negative-carbon-road-trip/ or http://negativecarbonroadtrip.evchargehub.com/

Kampgrounds of America is celebrating its 54th Anniversary in 2016. KOA, the world’s largest network of family-friendly campgrounds with 485 locations in North America, was born on the banks of the Yellowstone River in Billings, Montana in 1962. For more information, go to www.KOA.com or visit the KOA Pressroom at www.koapressroom.com.