Solar taxi takes ride through Korea
Working with Korea's Green Non-life Insurance, Swiss Re helped make the Solar Taxi's journey through Korea possible.
July 2008
In July last year, Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer began the world’s first-ever round-the-world journey in a car powered completely by solar energy.
Palmer’s solar-powered vehicle, dubbed the “Solar Taxi” because he gives rides along the way to various people, has travelled through Switzerland and around 20 other European countries, the Middle East, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and China.
In June 2008, he arrived in Korea for a 15-day trip through the country arriving in Incheon by ferry from China, then to Seoul and onwards to Busan from where it will took a ship to its next destination Japan.
To make this Korean journey possible, Swiss Re joined hands with local insurer Green Non-life Insurance to provide the Solar Taxi with a unique motor insurance policy – so that it could begin its Korean journey to spread the word about clean energy and climate change. The car is able to run at a maximum speed of 90 km/h.
At his speech during a press conference at the Swiss Embassy in Seoul to announce the start of the Taxi’s journey, Swiss Re’s Mark Senkevics explained his company’s history of involvement in climate related issues, “We are managers and traders of risk – so our business requires that we look forward and anticipate emerging risks that will impact the insurance industry.”
He added, “But we do it also because we are employers of more than 10,000 people around the world, including about 25 here in Seoul and more than 1,000 in Asia overall, and we care about the future facing our staff and their families, and that of the communities in which they live and work.”
On his return to Switzerland, Mr. Palmer will have travelled through five continents, more than 40 countries and over 40,000 km, and will have shared the two-seater cabin with ministers, journalists and backpackers.
It took three years to build the Solar Taxi. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and three Swiss universities of applied sciences have been involved in its making, integrating top-notch technologies and a flexible steering-wheel that allows the passenger to take control of the vehicle.
