PROJECT SUMMARY: This is Electro! – Project ID #/Title: 22110425, Applicant: Slovak Eco Quality, Seat: Bratislava, SK

Protection of environment undoubtedly belongs to one of the main issues which needs to be solved worldwide. A lot of areas of environment are already covered by various protection activities which bring desired results. But there are still areas which remain untouched despite of a fast development and technical innovations allowing changes also there. We decided to focus on motorsport and promotion of an alternative way of race which is ecologic, which does not produce emissions and which has even higher potential to find new racers and fans of new modern sports. Motorsport encompasses the group of competitive sport events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles, whether for racing or non-racing competition. It covers a competition of motorized vehicles such as formula, motorcycles, sport, off-road and rally vehicles, trucks and many others including those racings on snow, water and air. All motorsport vehicles have the same way of propulsion based on combustion engine which produces emissions such as carbon and nitrogen oxides, ammonia, unburned hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, ozone, particulates (carbon black) and aldehydes. Besides that it produces also noise emissions. All motorsport vehicles, both during a practice and a race, produce even much more emissions as standard vehicles since they need a higher power to gain more speed and acceleration. Considering the number and variety of motorsports, there are worldwide carried out thousands of races every single day which produce significant number of emissions with a negative impact on environment.

The issue of environmentalism in motorsport might be solved in more ways. There are several attempts to lower emissions using more effective combustion engines or more green fuels, but it applies just in a small range of motorsports and solves the emission issue only partially. Much better approach is to use fully electric engines which reduces emissions to zero level. There already exists an alternative category of formula racing called Formula E. Another approach is to invent brand new racing sports which are not based on existing motorsports and which are fully without emissions. In order to bring it to widest group of people, these personal racing vehicles must be affordable and available for a single person to buy and operate them. There are several personal electric vehicles on the market which already have this potential: onewheel, electric unicycle and electric skateboards and elongboards are a good example of that. Our project aims to address the issue on most direct way – together with our partners, we aim to promote and to organize a race of all these four electric vehicles and to have there riders from all V4 countries and from Austria. We assume that the real event is the best way how to promote a new sport, how to develop it and how to contribute not only to expansion of electric vehicles but also to environmental protection in general.

Innovative element of our proposal is a creation of a new sport discipline based on existing personal electric vehicles. The popularity of these vehicles started to grow last years as technical innovations enabled their massive production and their easier availability to a wider group of people. Another added value would be to create a new sport activity which has a potential to interest young generation that is still less and less interested in traditional activities and more oriented to technical innovations in general. This would also be a natural and easy way how to educate the people about environmental protection and how to nonviolently promote it not only within young generation.

Development of a green version of transport, sport and any activities related to way of life and free time will bring direct benefit to citizens of all involved countries and also to the region as a whole. This issue is necessary to be addressed not only on the level of Central Europe, but also world-wide. Even a small event could be a good first step in a big run and will be part of other activities which have the same goal – environmental protection. Winners of all race categories will receive shop vouchers which they could spend by buying goods from our partners – sellers of personal electric vehicles. This will directly help to promotion of this sport in V4 regions. Another benefit of this project is to motivate young people to spend their time in a active way. This new sport is pure outside activity which can be performed individually or in a community – e.g. the race or free rides in the city or in countryside. This is definitely better way how to spend a time than sitting at home and do the things only virtually (e.g. internet games).

A main part of our project organization will be formed by active riders on all involved electric vehicles. Vladimír Jelínek and Patrícia Moreczová (race/event organizers) are active onewheel riders for more than a one year with real experiences from attendance on various events related to electric vehicles inlcuding races. Milan Vido who will be responsible for creation of graphic promoting materials is also the active racer of EUC. Martin Stríž who is a Tiktok/Instagram influencer is as well the active OW rider. Our intension is to involve into this project organization as much as possible people which are already active fans of this sport regardless of role which they will have in the project. Our partners from Slovakia, Czechia and Poland belong to main stores and services providers in particular areas of personal electric vehicles on regional level. They also have real experiences in participation on various projects connected with electric vehicles, they are considered to be a core of these communities on their region level. Current low level of development and propagation of electric vehicles in Hungary and a lack of existing strong partners in this region we decided to solve by involving of partner Za udržateľné Podunajsko. They will help us to propagate our project goals in Hungary since they have a strong voice in sharing of green ideas in Selye Janos university in Slovakia and in the most of universities in Hungary.