Unusual participants in the electric car competition “Ignitis ON: discover the Baltic Sea!”
Up to 60 electric cars will participate in the electric car competition “Ignitis ON: discover the Baltic Sea!” to be held on June 6. This is the largest number in the history of the event, but this year’s competition will be unique for more than that.
3/4/20252 min read
Almost every year, we have seen guests or an unusual format in the electric car competition. In 2016, all participants started in identical “Nissan Leaf” electric cars provided by “Nissan Nordic”. The team of the multiple national car rally champion, Vice Minister of Transport S. Girdauskas and the head of the Lithuanian Road Administration E. Skrodenis won, reaching Palanga from Vilnius in 4 hours 49 minutes.
In 2017 an electric bicycle and a glider challenged the electric cars. One of the most titled cyclists in the country, Olympian, Lithuanian road champion, and winner of a stage of the prestigious Giro d'Italia race, Tomas Vaitkus cycled from the starting point in Vilnius to the railway station on an electric bike. Together with his equipment he took the Vilnius-Klaipėda train to Kretinga railway station, and from there he cycled again to Palanga. Gliding master Algirdas Šimoliūnas started with electric car and reached Paluknis airfield. From there, Algirdas, catching favorable currents through Ukmergė, Panevėžys, Joniškis, Mažeikiai, reached Klaipėda Aeroclub by glider. Then he got back into an electric car and rushed to the finish line of the competition in Palanga.
The 2021 guest team was the Yutong U12 bus with a 423 kWh battery and a range of up to 400 km. The bus traveled a slightly different route than all the participants. As did the electric city scooter Super Soco.
The 2023 Ignitis ON: Discover Lithuania! competition showed electric truck and motorcycle can easily cover long distances. The entire route from Vilnius to Klaipėda, stopping at Krekenava and Tauragė was covered by a Volvo FH truck and an Energica EVA Ribelle. The truck traveled the more than 400 km route without stopping to recharge.
In 2024, a hydrogen-powered car started the competition as a guest. There are only 2 hydrogen-powered cars registered in Lithuania, and one of them belongs to a researcher from Kaunas University of Technology. The crew drove the Hyundai ix35 FCEV.
In 2025 an electric concrete mixer will start in the competition. It will overcome part of the IF route from Palanga to Jūrmala, and then return to daily work in construction. A fully loaded vehicle weighs 32 tons and the 350kWh battery allows it to work all day without recharging. The concrete mixer manufacturer Putzmeister assembled it on the Sany truck base. According to the manufacturer’s calculations, compared to a standard diesel concrete mixer, the operating costs of this EV can be up to 45 percent lower. Heidelberg Materials Lietuva is the only one in the Baltics to have such electric mixers and charges them mostly in the Ignitis ON network.
In the electric car competition over the past 10 years, the overall victory was celebrated by the teams driving the following electric cars:
2015 KIA SOUL EV
2016 NISSAN LEAF
2017 HYUNDAI IONIQ
2018 NISSAN LEAF
2019 HYUNDAI KONA
2020 TESLA MODEL 3
2021 AUDI E-TRON GT
2022 EQS FROM MERCEDES EQ
2023 HYUNDAI IONIQ 6
2024 PORSCHE TAYCAN