Ewan McGregor has just been on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to discuss his and Charley Boorman’s upcoming showThe Long Way Upwhere they ride from Patagonia, Argentina, to California, USA.They rode Harley-Davidson LiveWire electric motorcycles, a choice which stirred up a fair bit of controversy in the community.Just about the first question Jimmy asks is how can you keep a motorcycle charged up when most people struggle to keep their mobile phone charged during travel.What an excellent question!Ewan said they would camp out in people’s backyards and charge the bikes either together, and risk blowing a house fuse, or one at a time.They took every opportunity to charge.If they stopped in a down the first thing they did was plug the bikes in.

Charlie never ran out of charge, but Ewan ran out of “gas” at least once and had to be towed.Ewan did the trip with two Rivian R1T electric support trucks which may have been able to top up the bikes, although the heavy trucks would also have needed to conserve energy.

›Ewan did the trip with two Rivian R1T electric support trucks which may have been able to top up the bikes, although the heavy trucks would also have needed to conserve energy.

The Long Way Uphas lent legitimacy to electric adventure-style riding and I expect will encourage the industry to invest in this market segment, although gasoline is not going away anytime soon.