It’s amazing how similar this year’s WAVE is similar to last year’s, and yet it’s probably even more entertaining and challenging than the last one. At least I can guarantee you that we are busy all day long constantly calculating distances, range and battery charge.

Thank God for technology.

We’re equally happy to report that today was rather easy. First off however, here’s the missing video from yesterday: my lap on (half of) the Sachsenring. As you can see, we are doing our best to support the rubber industry.

This will be a great memory – driving on the Sachsenring was a surprisingly unique experience. Anyway… the main task today consisted of driving from Leipzig to Magdeburg with stops in Lutherstadt Wittenberg and the Tesla Factory in Schönefeld.

The whole drive was basically quiet and uneventful, which is good. The most noticeable waypoint was the quick charger at BER. A really amazing view – a whole airport, complete with parking lots, roads, fences and whatnot, just sitting there completely deserted and deteriorating. It does give you an eerie feeling to see this, it’s a really creepy place.

In any event, things got serious today since I had a mission. Our friends from Anwil (our overnight stop next Tuesday) told us that their mascot, called Sunshine Kitty (SK) was on board on one of the WAVE cars and we ventured out to find it. All we had was this picture…

Have you seen this kitty? (the young man pictured above is accounted for)

…and the information that SK was riding with team 38 in a BMW i3. Well, easy, let’s just ask them, right?

“Nope”

According to Hermann from Team T-Systems, Sunshine Kitty was on board the T-Systems i3 for the World Record in Tempelhof three weeks ago but was returned to its (supposedly) rightful owner since. Well, what now? Easy! Just ask the boss. All I had to do is find Louis Palmer, which is easier said than done. Louis is the head and heart of the WAVE, which means he’s some kind of incarnation of Schroedinger’s Cat since he’s usually everywhere and nowhere to be found at the same time. In the end I managed to find him and ask about SK’s whereabouts.

Pointing at our green electric support Tesla, he sais “it’s in Thomas’ car. I know where my stuff is!” Cool! So let’s find Thomas and get SK back now finally!

“whaaaat?”

Thomas was positive he had never heard of someone or something called Sunshine Kitty and that there were definitely no cats inside his Tesla. Great, back to square one. Find Louis Palmer! Trying to catch a fly with chopsticks would probably have been easier but in the end I succeeded, again.

“umm…. okkaay…”

After convincing Louis that I still hadn’t found SK and tediously explaining in great lengths that it would be paramount to the survival of western society that I find it, he suggested that SK would most probably be in the Renault Zoé of support Team 2 and that it probably would be a good idea to try and track down Chantal.

Meet Chantal.

several hours later, I finally managed to track Chantal down, only to find out that she was just as startled as everybody else before her when I asked about the whereabouts of Sunshine Kitty. Describing the physical appearance of SK and using the picture from the search warrant, she then admitted that that exact mascot was traveling in their support vehicle. But…. you guessed it. Since she did not have the key to the car, I would now have to track down her team mate Lisa!

Hello, Lisa!

We’ll interrupt our story at this point for a very important announcement – you’ll have to check our updates on our facebook wall tomorrow to find out if we have made any progress in our “Quest For Sunshine Kitty”.

In fact we would like to report fraudulent activity witnessed during the search for Sunshine Kitty. We happened to ask yet another team whether they would have an unregistered mascot on board and found out that the team’s car had actually been tampered with.

The culprit

As a matter of fact, we found out that the ‘Electric Cruisers’ Tesla Model S 85 had been secretly modified to a PP85D+ by adding a custom front motor! And we have the pictures to prove it.

Also, this act of ruthless violation of the WAVE rules and regulations wasn’t commited by just one person. We have reports that the driver of the vehicle pictured below was involved in these criminal activities and is currently trying to escape to the atlantic rain forest to avoid prosecution.

Check back tomorrow on facebook to see if we managed to find Sunshine Kitty. In the meantime, please consider supporting Gordon’s and Leora’s efforts by donating to the Growing Air Foundation.