Electric Vehicles in the Mille Miglia: Racing's Toughest EV Challenge

The roar of a V12 engine echoing off ancient Italian marble isn't just a sound—it's tradition incarnate. The Mille Miglia, one of the world's most prestigious road rallies, stretches over 1,200 kilometers from Brescia to Rome and back, weaving through some of Europe's most breathtaking countryside. For nearly a century, it's been the proving ground for automotive excellence, drawing classic Ferraris, Alfa Romeos, and modern supercars that represent the pinnacle of gasoline-powered performance.

But in recent years, something unexpected has begun appearing among these mechanical masterpieces: electric vehicles.

When you first hear about an EV competing in the Mille Miglia, you might imagine it's a gimmick—a marketing stunt by some ambitious startup trying to grab headlines. The reality is far more complex and genuinely fascinating. Over the past five years, the Mille Miglia Green initiative has deliberately integrated electric vehicles into this hallowed competition, not to replace tradition but to challenge assumptions about what EVs can accomplish. This isn't about proving that battery cars are faster or better than their combustion counterparts. It's about testing whether they can survive—and perhaps even thrive—in conditions that push every mechanical and logistical boundary.

The experience of competing in this rally with an electric Polestar 3 revealed something unexpected: the real challenge of EV racing isn't about performance or acceleration. It's about infrastructure, planning, timing, and the unglamorous realities of managing a battery that never quite gives you the range you need, especially when jet lag clouds your judgment and you're navigating Italian time zones while trying to hit precise average speeds through mountain roads.

This deep dive explores the untold story of what happens when cutting-edge electric technology meets 1,200 kilometers of Italian countryside, where charging stations are sparse, cultural expectations run deep, and even experienced drivers find themselves starting from last place.

TL; DR

• EV charging infrastructure gaps: European "fast" chargers often deliver only 48 kW when 300+ kW chargers are available elsewhere, requiring strategic planning and backup routes
• Jet lag disrupts performance: Time zone changes and early morning wake-ups (3:30 AM departures) significantly impact driver precision in timed rally challenges
• Spectator culture clash: Italian crowds showed mixed reactions to EVs, with some shouting "no sound, no feeling!" while others embraced the sustainability message
• Navigation and pace control: Traditional rally strategies like speedometer calibration and overtaking decisions become critical when competing against both classic cars and modern supercars
• Bottom line: Electric vehicles can complete demanding rallies, but success requires different preparation, charging logistics, and mindset than traditional race cars

Charging infrastructure and charger bottlenecks are the most severe challenges for EV drivers in the Mille Miglia, highlighting the need for better planning and coordination. Estimated data.

The Historical Context: Why the Mille Miglia Matters

To understand what makes this challenge so significant, you need to grasp exactly what the Mille Miglia represents in automotive culture. This isn't some modern creation designed by marketers. The original Mille Miglia began in 1927 as an open road race covering roughly 1,000 miles of Italian territory. World War II interrupted the tradition, but it resumed in 1955 with Stirling Moss and his navigator achieving legendary status when they piloted their Mercedes to victory while navigating in conditions that would terrify modern drivers.

The classic Mille Miglia eventually stopped as a competitive race in 1957, partly due to safety concerns after fatal crashes. What emerged instead was something different but arguably more interesting: a regularity rally. Instead of raw speed, modern Mille Miglia competitors are judged on precision—their ability to maintain exact speeds and arrive at checkpoints within specified time windows. This distinction matters enormously because it fundamentally changes what the competition requires.

Where traditional racing rewards aggression and absolute performance, regularity rallies reward control, consistency, and mental discipline. You can't simply floor the accelerator and hope to win. You need to understand how to interpret detailed roadbooks, manage your pace with mathematical precision, and work with a co-driver who's interpreting instructions while you're focused on road conditions.

The addition of the Mille Miglia Green component represents something historically significant: the first real test of whether electric vehicles could operate effectively in a professional motorsport context outside of dedicated EV racing series. This wasn't a track event where charging stations line the paddock. This was a 1,200-kilometer journey through the Italian countryside where infrastructure wasn't designed with battery cars in mind.

Day One: The Reality Check

Walking up to the starting line at Brescia with a Polestar 3, you immediately understand why Italian spectators reacted with skepticism. The Polestar doesn't sound like a Ferrari. It doesn't have the visceral drama of a V12 engine. When you press the accelerator, your first sensation is the absence of something—that deep rumble that Italians have loved for generations. Instead, you get immediate, linear acceleration with a slight electric whine. It's efficient. It's modern. It's also profoundly unsettling to people who've spent decades associating racing with sound.

The first day's route from Brescia toward Ferrara introduced us to what would become the defining challenge: time trials. The roadbook contained red-highlighted sections ranging from eight seconds to four minutes. In theory, this sounded straightforward—maintain the correct average speed through these sections and accumulate points based on precision. The reality involved a level of precision that nobody had adequately trained for.

Without coaching and equipped only with an iPhone stopwatch and an English translation of the rulebook that occasionally clarified nothing, navigating these time trials became a study in failure. Sometimes the car was going too fast, requiring dramatic braking before the finish line. Other times we were clearly running too slowly, and the final seconds involved flooring the accelerator in what felt like an ill-judged overtake rather than a controlled finish. After seven hours of this without breaks for food, water, coffee, or even a restroom, the Polestar's battery had dropped to concerning levels.

A 30-minute dinner break meant an eight-minute walk to the restaurant and a 10-minute wait for the single available restroom. When we returned to the car for the 1.5-hour drive to Bologna, charging became the immediate crisis. The two Polestar drivers in our convoy found a "fast" charger that maxed out at 48 kW—a throttled speed that meant we wouldn't fully charge until midnight, despite having a 3:30 AM wake-up call looming.

The experience revealed something critical about EV infrastructure: the existence of charging stations doesn't guarantee useful charging. A 48 kW charger in a country with 300+ kW alternatives available just minutes away represents a kind of charging purgatory. You're charging, technically, but at a rate that barely exceeds what many Level 2 home chargers provide. We drove 15 minutes to an Intuity-operated station where a 170 kW charger added 62 kWh in 32 minutes, bringing us to 90 percent state of charge with 330 kilometers of range showing on the dash.

The achievement felt hollow given we'd finished the first day in last place in the Green category rankings.

Estimated data shows how a small discrepancy in speedometer readings can lead to significant timing errors over a rally section. The pace car maintained a constant 31 km/h, but the driver's speedometer varied slightly, causing a lag.

Understanding the Regularity Rally Format

Before diving deeper into the technical and logistical challenges, it's worth understanding exactly how a modern regularity rally works, because this structure fundamentally shapes what drivers must accomplish.

In a regularity rally, the competition isn't about who reaches the destination first. It's about who meets predetermined criteria with the most precision. The roadbook contains sections marked for timing, each with a target average speed in kilometers per hour. Your job is to maintain exactly that speed—not faster, not slower—from the start marker to the finish marker. Arrive too early and you lose points. Arrive too late and you lose points. Perfect timing earns you full points.

The mathematical basis is straightforward. If a section is 8.61 kilometers long and the target average speed is 31 km/h, you need exactly 16 minutes and 42 seconds to complete it without penalty. That's what sounds easy in theory. In practice, it involves constant speed adjustments, reading the road ahead, anticipating curves, and managing acceleration and braking in ways that feel completely unnatural to drivers trained in traditional racing.

Different rallyists approach this differently. Some use elaborate pace note systems where a second person reads out speed targets every few seconds. Others develop an almost meditative understanding of maintaining consistent throttle position. The Mille Miglia Green approach involved less sophisticated methods—we were following a pace car and police escort through much of the route, which helped but also created its own complications.

When the pace car sets the speed, you're trusting that the car's speedometer aligns with your actual velocity. During day two of the rally, we discovered our Polestar's speedometer was running slightly fast. At 31 km/h according to our dash, we were actually going slightly slower. This meant we were falling behind the target average speed without realizing it. We only discovered the discrepancy halfway through the timed section when my co-driver calculated how much time we'd need to complete the remaining distance at our current speed.

The solution involved a perhaps ill-judged overtaking maneuver in the final moments—punching the accelerator to make up the lost time. It worked, though with the kind of adrenaline rush that doesn't belong in a precision rally. We apparently hit the correct average speed, and my heart rate stayed elevated for the next hour.

The Jet Lag Factor: When Fatigue Becomes a Technical Problem

One aspect of the Mille Miglia Green experience that rarely gets discussed is the role of jet lag in competitive performance. This might seem like a minor detail—certainly less significant than charging infrastructure or mechanical reliability. In reality, it fundamentally degraded our performance in ways that became increasingly obvious as the rally progressed.

Flying from North America to Italy introduces an 8-9 hour time difference. Your body expects to sleep during daylight hours and stay awake at night. The rally schedule, meanwhile, demands peak mental performance at 3:30 AM when your circadian rhythm is screaming at you to sleep. Your brain is operating on fumes, your reaction times are slower, and small decisions that should be automatic—like noticing that your speedometer is slightly off—become difficult.

The first night's sleep was minimal. After charging the car around midnight and conducting pre-rally preparations, actual sleep began around 1 AM. Two and a half hours of sleep later, your alarm goes off. You stumble to the car in pre-dawn darkness, your consciousness still operating at 40 percent capacity. The day's first time trials happen in this state.

Research on rally driving specifically looks at how sleep deprivation affects precision tasks. Unlike track racing where consistent top performance matters, rally precision requires sustained attention to small variations—exactly the kind of task that jet lag destroys. You're fighting your own biology while trying to hit targets that are measured in seconds across kilometers of road.

By day three, my co-driver and I managed a minor victory in terms of ranking—we moved up one position. The achievement felt less like driving skill and more like adjusting to the reality that everyone was suffering from jet lag, and whoever adjusted fastest had the advantage. We weren't racing cars. We were racing our own fatigue.

Charging Infrastructure: The Hidden Complexity

The charging experience revealed something that typical EV owners in well-developed markets might not immediately grasp: charging infrastructure exists on a spectrum, and that spectrum varies wildly even within developed countries.

Europe has been investing heavily in public charging for several years. Major highways have charging stations. Cities have networks of available chargers. But there's a massive difference between having available chargers and having useful chargers. A 48 kW charger technically qualifies as a DC fast charger by older standards, but when you're trying to add meaningful range in under an hour, it's essentially a slow charger dressed up in fast charger clothing.

The Mille Miglia Green convoy included several different electric vehicles, and each had different charging requirements and capabilities. The Polestar 3 can accept 200+ kW when available. The Polestar 2 has a lower charging ceiling. The Denza and Lotus vehicles had their own charging connectors and maximum speeds. When everyone arrived at the same charger simultaneously, coordination became critical.

At the Bologna charging stop, the local "fast" charger had multiple ports but seemed to throttle overall power. With two cars plugged in, the system capped out at 48 kW per car. This isn't the charger's fault—it's an electrical infrastructure limitation. The maximum power available to the charging location was insufficient to support two vehicles charging at full capacity simultaneously.

This created a cascading problem. If we waited for a full charge at 48 kW, we'd charge until midnight. We needed to be asleep for a 3:30 AM wake-up. The solution was to drive to alternative chargers, which itself consumed time and range. Finding an optimal charger (170 kW) required a 15-minute drive, but arrived at that charger to find multiple other rally teams with the same idea.

For future EV rallies, infrastructure scouting becomes a critical pre-event task. You don't just map the route. You identify every charging station, verify its actual capability (not its theoretical maximum), test it if possible, and build redundancy into your plan. A charger that works well for individual drivers traveling alone might be inadequate for a convoy of EVs arriving simultaneously.

The chart estimates that by 2033, both charging infrastructure readiness and EV rally participation will significantly improve, reducing current logistical challenges. (Estimated data)

Spectator Culture and the Sound Question

The cultural reaction to an electric Polestar competing in the Mille Miglia deserves examination because it raises legitimate questions about what performance means and why people love cars.

Some spectators shouted "no sound, no feeling!" at the Polestar. This wasn't random hostility—it reflected a genuine principle. For people who've grown up with internal combustion engines, the sound and vibration of a high-performance engine is inseparable from the experience of driving. A V12 Ferrari doesn't just accelerate quickly. It announces itself. It fills the surrounding area with noise that triggers an emotional response. An electric vehicle, by contrast, is serene. It's meditative. It's also profoundly quiet.

Other spectators smiled and waved. Some did double-takes, clearly curious about the anomaly competing among Ferraris and classic cars. The reaction varied significantly based on age, geography, and personal automotive philosophy. Younger spectators seemed more accepting. Spectators in smaller towns appeared more curious. Those in larger cities had seen more electric vehicles and seemed less surprised.

What struck me was that neither reaction was wrong. The spectators who loved the traditional cars were experiencing genuine appreciation for engineered sound and mechanical drama. The spectators who waved weren't dismissing those values. They were acknowledging that automotive evolution includes room for different approaches to performance.

The Mille Miglia has always been about pushing boundaries and testing what's possible. Bringing electric vehicles into the event isn't about declaring that EVs are superior. It's about acknowledging that the next era of automotive performance will be electric, and these vehicles deserve space in the conversation about what driving excellence means.

Managing Speed Precision and the Overtaking Dilemma

As someone who has navigated the Dakar Rally, I arrived at the Mille Miglia thinking I understood how to interpret roadbooks and maintain precision in challenging driving. The Dakar uses a different system—a more complex roadbook with constant course corrections. The Mille Miglia's timed sections seemed straightforward by comparison.

They weren't. The challenge wasn't interpreting instructions. It was maintaining exact speed without constant reference points. On a standard road with traffic, you can use other vehicles as speed references. In the Mille Miglia, you're following a pace car and police escort specifically designated to set speed. You're trusting their speedometer against your own, and if there's a discrepancy, you won't know until you've already miscalculated an entire timed section.

Day two introduced an average-speed section that illustrated this perfectly. The target was 31 km/h over 8.61 kilometers. We were following the pace car, which we assumed was maintaining 31 km/h. Our speedometer showed approximately that speed. But halfway through, we realized we were running behind target. The pace car's speedometer might have been slightly optimistic. Our speedometer might have been slightly pessimistic. The difference was only a few kilometers per hour, but over 8+ kilometers, it accumulated into a significant timing error.

The solution—an aggressive overtaking maneuver to make up time—wasn't elegant, but it worked. It also raised a question that defines rally competition: how much risk is appropriate to achieve the target? In traditional racing, that answer is clear—push as hard as possible. In precision rallying, the answer is murkier. You want to maintain enough margin that a mistake doesn't destroy your standing, but you also can't be so conservative that you fail to meet targets.

This decision-making happens in seconds while operating on jet lag and coffee. It's one of the most human aspects of motorsport—the moment where experience, judgment, and calculated risk-taking intersect.

The Wrong Turn: Navigating Italy's Network

Day three delivered a moment that felt like it defined the entire rally experience. Following the pace car and police escort through the morning, our entire EV convoy made a wrong turn almost immediately after leaving Rome. The entire group. Somehow the lead vehicle missed a turn, and every car behind followed.

From the navigator's position, I could see the discrepancy between the roadbook and our actual location. I shouted at my co-driver not to follow the convoy. We made a quick U-turn and found ourselves alone on the correct route.

What happened next was the most authentic Mille Miglia experience of the entire rally. Without the pace car and police escort, we encountered the genuine road and genuine competition. We found the pace car ahead—having already realized the error—and were waved forward to wait while the other teams worked their way back to the correct route. That delay gave us an opening to experience what the Mille Miglia is really about.

For the first time, we mixed it up with the other cars competing in the standard rally. Modern Ferraris. Vehicles from different eras, each with different capabilities. V12 engines echoing off marble walls in tiny mountain towns. The early morning mist burning off as we climbed through hillside sections. Every curve was a discovery. Every village seemed purpose-built for dramatic driving.

Without a pace car, we drove by instinct and roadbook, responding to the actual road rather than following someone else's speed. The Polestar's electric acceleration—something we'd rarely noticed while traveling at controlled rally speeds—suddenly felt useful. We could exit curves and build speed on the straightaways without the sound-based drama of a traditional engine, but with more responsive throttle than many of the classics we were passing.

That section reminded me why automotive enthusiasts love the Mille Miglia despite its challenges. It's not about competition in the traditional sense. It's about the experience of driving through some of the world's most beautiful landscape in machines that represent different eras and philosophies of automotive design. An EV competing in that context isn't an anomaly. It's evolution happening in real time.

The EV's performance improved significantly over the 4-day rally, demonstrating increased charging efficiency and better race positioning. Estimated data.

Battery Management Across 1,200 Kilometers

Managing a battery's state of charge across 1,200 kilometers involves constant calculation and adjustment. You're not just thinking about whether you have enough range to reach your destination. You're thinking about charging station locations, charging speeds at each location, driving style impacts on consumption, and margins for error.

The Polestar 3's efficiency in highway driving varies significantly based on speed. At 31 km/h in the average-speed sections, efficiency was excellent. At higher speeds on faster road sections, consumption increased noticeably. A 330-kilometer range claim becomes 290 kilometers of practical range when you're driving 90+ km/h on hilly roads.

Each night, charging became a logistical puzzle. Where should we charge? How long would it take? Would there be availability? Could we time it so that we charged only what we needed, or would we need to top up extra because the next charger might have longer wait times?

This mental overhead is something that traditional rally competitors don't face. A gasoline car can stop for fuel in minutes and immediately be at full capacity. An electric vehicle takes 30 to 45 minutes at a good charger, and that time can stretch to hours if charger availability is limited or if the charger is slower than expected.

By day three and four, we'd developed patterns. We knew which charging stations had reliable 150+ kW capabilities. We knew that the Intuity chargers were dependable but sometimes had wait times. We planned charging to occur during transition periods or lunch breaks rather than trying to charge purely on schedule.

This management isn't dramatic. It doesn't make for exciting racing stories. But it's essential, and it requires a different mindset than traditional motorsport. You're not optimizing for speed or excitement. You're optimizing for reliability and availability.

Spectator Reactions Across Different Regions

As we drove through Italy over four days, regional differences in how spectators reacted to the EV became apparent. In rural areas, the Polestar often drew curious looks and waves. Children pointed. Elderly spectators seemed intrigued by something different competing among the classics.

In cities, reactions were more muted. More people have seen electric vehicles. The novelty wore off. But in smaller towns where the Mille Miglia is a major annual event and where automotive tradition runs deep, there was genuine interest mixed with skepticism.

The most memorable interactions came from other drivers. A group of classic car enthusiasts at one of the checkpoints asked detailed questions about charging, acceleration, and range. They seemed genuinely curious about how the Polestar compared to their vehicles. These weren't hostile conversations. They were the kind of technical discussions that car people enjoy regardless of fuel type.

What I didn't encounter was uniform dismissal. Some people preferred traditional engines. That's legitimate. But the dominant reaction seemed to be curiosity and acceptance that the Mille Miglia was large enough to include both traditions.

The Second Night: Sleep, Recovery, and Strategic Adjustment

By the second evening, my co-driver and I had experienced 24 hours of Italian driving while fighting jet lag. We'd finished the first day in last place. We'd made navigational errors. Our speedometer had deceived us. We needed something to change.

The Polestar team, recognizing the state of the rally's EV contingent, made a strategic decision. They offered to let us sleep while our car charged, taking us from our vehicle to a support car where we could actually rest for a few hours. This small act of logistical support had outsized impact.

We slept from roughly 1 AM to 4 AM—three hours of actual sleep. It wasn't ideal, but it was more than the previous night's 2.5 hours. When we woke at 4 AM to prepare for another early departure, we discovered we'd moved up one position in the rankings. It wasn't dramatic progress, but it was progress.

That single night of marginally better sleep changed how we approached day three. We were sharper. Our decision-making improved. When we encountered the wrong-turn situation, we had the mental clarity to identify it immediately and adjust. The jet lag hadn't disappeared, but we'd acclimated enough that it wasn't the dominant factor anymore.

This raises an interesting observation about endurance motorsport: crew management and logistics are as important as driver skill. A team that plans charging strategically, ensures adequate rest, and provides support when drivers are struggling will consistently outperform more talented drivers who try to push through fatigue and poor preparation.

The Mille Miglia began as a race in 1927, paused during WWII, resumed in 1955, and transitioned to a regularity rally by 1957. In 2023, it included electric vehicles, marking a new era. Estimated data for historical context.

Comparing EV Performance in the Mille Miglia Context

Within the EV contingent of the Mille Miglia Green, there were differences worth noting. The Polestar 3 is a larger, more powerful vehicle than the Polestar 2. It has different acceleration characteristics, different charging capabilities, and different energy consumption patterns.

The Denza vehicles, which are Chinese-built and relatively unfamiliar to European markets, had their own challenges. Not all charging stations recognized their connectors. Range estimates varied. Integration with the rally's infrastructure was more complicated.

The Lotus vehicles, despite being electric, are lighter and more efficient than the Polestar 3. For a precision rally focused on consistency rather than acceleration, the Lotus's efficiency advantages could theoretically translate to scoring advantages. Less range anxiety means more confidence in maintaining targets without worrying about whether you have enough battery to reach the next charger.

But this is where the rally highlighted something important: electric vehicle diversity matters. The rally included vehicles from different manufacturers, with different charging standards, different efficiency profiles, and different capabilities. Success required understanding each vehicle's characteristics and planning accordingly.

In traditional motorsport, competing vehicles are usually similar. In the Mille Miglia Green, the mix of different EV platforms meant that standardized strategy wouldn't work. What succeeded for the Polestar 3 might not work for a Lotus. What worked for a Denza required different charging planning than a Polestar 2.

The Parade Through Rome

Day two's conclusion involved a parade through Rome—not a timed competition section, but a public display of the vehicles competing in the rally. This was where the cultural significance of the Mille Miglia became most visible.

Rome has hosted the Mille Miglia for decades. The parade route is familiar. Spectators line the streets. Local media covers the event. For a few hours, cars that represent different eras and engineering philosophies drive through one of the world's most historically significant cities.

Seeing the Polestar 3 in that context—surrounded by 1950s Ferraris, modern supercars, and vehicles from every era of automotive history—reinforced something important. The Mille Miglia isn't about proving one approach is superior. It's about celebrating the diversity of automotive excellence.

The parade felt like a moment where the Mille Miglia Green justified its existence. We weren't trying to win against the classic cars. We were demonstrating that the future of automotive performance doesn't have to abandon the values that made the original Mille Miglia legendary.

Days Three and Four: Finding Rhythm

By the third day, patterns had emerged. We understood how to manage charging. We understood how to read the rally's timed sections. We understood that precision mattered more than speed. We were no longer in last place.

The route northward from Rome took us through increasingly mountainous terrain. The roads became more challenging. The villages grew smaller. The experience of driving the Polestar through these sections—smooth, responsive, quiet—felt appropriate somehow. We weren't trying to outrun the V12s. We were trying to experience the same roads they were experiencing, just with different mechanical character.

The final day looped back toward Brescia through roads that many competitors complete multiple times. Familiarity breeds confidence. By day four, we were no longer fighting the Mille Miglia. We were enjoying it.

This might be the most important discovery of the entire rally: electric vehicles in the Mille Miglia context don't have to prove superiority. They just have to participate authentically. When we stopped trying to compete like a traditional racing car and instead focused on the precision and patience that the rally actually demands, everything became easier.

Estimated data shows a steady increase in electric vehicle participation in the Mille Miglia rally, highlighting growing interest and capability in EV technology.

Infrastructure Lessons: Planning for Future EV Rallies

Future electric vehicle participants in long-distance rallies can learn from the experiences of the Mille Miglia Green. Several principles emerge clearly from four days of driving and charging across Italy.

First, pre-event charger scouting is non-negotiable. You can't rely on the existence of chargers. You need to verify that each charger actually delivers its theoretical charging speed. A 300 kW charger that's oversubscribed or underfunded might deliver 150 kW in practice. You need to know this before the rally starts.

Second, build redundancy into your charging plan. Identify multiple chargers in each region. If your primary charger is unavailable or overwhelmed, you need backup options within driving distance. The extra 15-minute drive we made to find a better charger is far preferable to waiting in a line that doesn't move.

Third, coordinate with event organizers about charging logistics. The Mille Miglia Green included support from the Polestar team, which helped with charging availability and logistics. If you're competing without manufacturer support, you need to have these logistics figured out independently.

Fourth, understand that charging speed varies with state of charge and ambient conditions. The final 10-20 percent of a battery charge happens much more slowly than the first 60 percent. Plan accordingly. If you need to reach 90 percent state of charge to complete the next leg, don't assume you'll get a full charge even with a high-power charger.

Fifth, communication matters. When multiple EV teams are using the same charger, coordination prevents bottlenecks. Someone needs to be tracking which vehicles are charging where and how long each vehicle needs.

The Broader Implications for EV Endurance Motorsport

The Mille Miglia Green experience suggests that electric vehicles are ready for long-distance rally competition, but with important caveats.

They're ready because they have the efficiency, reliability, and performance to complete demanding drives. The Polestar 3 never failed mechanically. It charged consistently. It performed well in the specific context the rally demanded.

But they're not ready in the sense that traditional rally infrastructure and logistics aren't optimized for them yet. A gasoline car can stop for fuel at any major petrol station. An electric car requires planning, knowledge of regional charging networks, and strategies for managing situations where demand exceeds supply.

Over the next 5-10 years, this will change. As EV adoption increases and charging infrastructure improves, the logistical challenges that defined our Mille Miglia experience will diminish. But for now, EV rally participation requires different preparation than traditional cars.

The Mille Miglia Green is valuable precisely because it's exploring this gap. By bringing EVs into the world's most prestigious road rally, the event is testing and demonstrating what's possible while identifying what needs to improve. That's more valuable than any manufacturer's marketing materials could be.

Lessons in Precision and Focus

One final observation emerged from four days of rally driving: precision matters more than performance.

The Polestar 3 is fast. It accelerates to highway speeds almost instantly. It handles well. But none of that mattered for the actual rally. What mattered was maintaining exact speeds, hitting time targets, reading the road ahead, and working with a co-driver to execute planned strategy.

A slower car driven with precision would have beaten a faster car driven aggressively. The rally explicitly rewards consistency over speed. This is a humbling lesson for anyone trained in traditional racing mentality.

It's also a lesson that applies beyond motorsport. In many competitive contexts, consistency and precision matter more than raw capability. The person who consistently delivers good results beats the person with huge swings between exceptional and poor. The team that executes planned strategy beats the team trying to improvise brilliance.

The Mille Miglia, paradoxically, teaches that lesson better with an electric car than with a traditional performance car. Because you can't rely on sound and vibration and engine drama to carry you. You have to rely on precision.

Looking Forward: The Evolution of EV Rally Sport

What happens next with electric vehicles in the Mille Miglia and similar events? The trajectory seems clear, though not inevitable.

As EV adoption increases globally, charging infrastructure will continue to improve. Fast chargers will become more common. Regional variations in charging standards will decrease. The logistical challenges that defined our experience will diminish.

Manufacturers will also develop strategies specifically for rally participation. EV rally teams will become specialized, understanding the unique requirements and opportunities that battery-powered competition creates.

The Mille Miglia Green will likely expand. If electric vehicle participation proves popular with spectators and logistically manageable, future editions might include more EVs competing at higher levels. Eventually, you might see EV-specific categories competing at championship levels.

But here's what won't change: the Mille Miglia's core value as a test of drivers, vehicles, and teams pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Whether that test involves a 1950s Ferrari or a 2020s electric Polestar is ultimately irrelevant. The point is the challenge itself.

Conclusion: EV Racing Comes of Age

Driving a Polestar 3 across 1,200 kilometers of Italian countryside in the Mille Miglia Green wasn't a test to prove that electric vehicles are better than traditional cars. It was a test of whether they can participate meaningfully in one of motorsport's most challenging and prestigious events.

The answer is yes, with important qualifications.

Electric vehicles have the capability, efficiency, and reliability to complete long-distance rallies. But they require different preparation, different logistics, and different mindsets than traditional cars. A team approaching an EV rally with traditional race car assumptions will struggle. A team understanding the specific requirements of electric competition will succeed.

The jet lag mattered. The charging logistics mattered. The decision to overtake to make up time mattered. The realization that we'd finished last on day one but were racing competitively by day three mattered. The discovery that precision and consistency matter more than raw speed mattered.

Four days across Italian landscape in an electric car taught lessons that no sales pitch or marketing material could communicate. Electric vehicles aren't the future of motorsport because they're inherently superior. They're the future because they represent evolution—different approaches to performance that deserve space in the conversation about driving excellence.

The Mille Miglia has survived nearly a century by celebrating diverse expressions of automotive passion. That tradition continues with electric vehicles now taking their place among Ferraris and classics and modern supercars, all sharing Italian roads and pushing boundaries in their own ways.

That's not a threat to tradition. That's tradition evolving.

FAQ

What is the Mille Miglia Green?

The Mille Miglia Green is a five-year initiative that integrates electric vehicles into the famous Mille Miglia road rally, which spans 1,200 kilometers from Brescia to Rome and back. Rather than traditional racing, it's a regularity rally where drivers are judged on precision—maintaining exact speeds and arriving at checkpoints within specified time windows rather than completing the course fastest. This initiative aims to raise awareness of sustainable transportation while demonstrating that modern electric vehicles can participate meaningfully in one of motorsport's most demanding events.

How does the Mille Miglia regularity rally format work?

Unlike traditional races where fastest time wins, regularity rallies reward precision and consistency. Competitors navigate timed sections using roadbooks while maintaining target average speeds measured in kilometers per hour. Arriving too early or too late results in point deductions, while perfect timing earns full points. For example, an 8.61-kilometer section with a 31 km/h target requires exactly 16 minutes and 42 seconds to complete without penalty. This format emphasizes driver control and technical skill over raw performance and speed, making it fundamentally different from traditional motorsport competition.

What are the main challenges of driving an EV in the Mille Miglia?

The primary challenges include managing charging infrastructure across 1,200 kilometers when stations vary significantly in charging speed and availability, dealing with jet lag that affects driver precision during early-morning timed sections, coordinating with multiple other EV drivers who may arrive at chargers simultaneously creating bottleneck situations, maintaining exact speed targets when speedometers may vary slightly between vehicles, and adapting to spectator culture that historically celebrated internal combustion engines. Additionally, time management becomes critical because charging a battery to 90 percent typically takes 30 to 45 minutes, compared to minutes for traditional fuel refueling.

Why did the Polestar team allow drivers to sleep while charging?

Recognizing that jet lag and minimal sleep were degrading driver performance, the Polestar support team made a strategic decision to prioritize crew management. By allowing drivers to rest in support vehicles while their cars charged, they helped overcome the physiological impacts of time zone changes and early morning wake-up calls that were affecting precision in the rally's timed sections. This supports an important principle in endurance motorsport: crew management and proper rest often matter as much as raw driving skill, and teams that invest in driver recovery typically outperform teams pushing through fatigue.

How does EV charging infrastructure vary across Europe?

European charging infrastructure exists on a spectrum from 48 kilowatt chargers that deliver minimal useful charging to 300+ kilowatt chargers that add significant range in 20 to 30 minutes. A 48 kW charger might technically qualify as a "fast" charger but operates more like a slow home charger in practical terms when you need to add substantial range. Availability also varies—some regions have multiple chargers clustered together, while others have single chargers serving large areas. Additionally, different vehicles use different charging connectors, which can prevent some EVs from using certain chargers regardless of power output, complicating logistics for multi-manufacturer EV convoys.

Why do spectators react differently to EVs in the Mille Miglia than to traditional cars?

Spectators' reactions often reflect their relationship with automotive tradition and sound. For people who grew up with V12 engines, the roar and vibration are inseparable from the driving experience. An electric vehicle's near-silent operation, while mechanically superior in some ways, lacks that emotional resonance. However, regional differences emerged: rural and younger spectators were more accepting and curious, while urban spectators who had seen more electric vehicles reacted with less novelty. The dominant response wasn't hostility but a combination of curiosity and acknowledgment that automotive evolution includes room for different technological approaches to performance.

What role does jet lag play in precision rally performance?

Jet lag disrupts the circadian rhythm and impairs mental performance precisely when the rally demands peak precision. With 3:30 AM wake-up calls and an 8 to 9-hour time difference, drivers are operating at reduced cognitive capacity during the most challenging portions of the rally. Precision rallies reward consistent attention to small variations—the exact kind of task that sleep deprivation destroys. A driver finishing in last place after the first day, following only 2.5 hours of sleep, experienced measurably better performance after obtaining three hours of actual rest, despite still fighting residual jet lag.

What infrastructure improvements would most help EV rally participation?

Future improvements should focus on standardizing charging connector types across manufacturers to prevent compatibility issues, expanding the availability of 150+ kilowatt chargers in rural areas where regional coverage is currently sparse, improving communication systems so rally organizers and teams can coordinate real-time charging availability, and developing strategies for managing situations where multiple high-power vehicles arrive at the same charger simultaneously. Additionally, predictable information about actual charging speeds at specific locations (not theoretical maximums) would improve planning significantly. Event organizers should also coordinate with local charging networks before events to reserve capacity for participant vehicles.

How might EV rally sport evolve over the next decade?

As EV adoption increases and charging infrastructure improves, logistical challenges that currently complicate EV rally participation will diminish. Manufacturers will develop specialized rally teams with deep understanding of electric vehicle requirements. Regional charging variations will decrease due to infrastructure standardization. Eventually, you may see EV-specific rally categories competing at championship levels, separate from traditional categories. However, the core value of rally sport—testing drivers, vehicles, and teams pushing boundaries—remains unchanged regardless of fuel type. The Mille Miglia Green is valuable precisely because it's exploring the transition from primarily gasoline-powered competition to an era where electric vehicles participate meaningfully alongside traditional cars.

Key Takeaways

• Regularity rallies prioritize precision and consistency over raw speed, fundamentally changing how EVs must be prepared compared to traditional racing
• European charging infrastructure varies dramatically, from adequate 150+ kW chargers to throttled 48 kW 'fast' chargers that create logistical bottlenecks
• Jet lag and sleep deprivation significantly impact precision rally performance, making crew management as important as driver skill
• Spectator reactions to EVs were mixed regionally—skepticism about sound and tradition mixed with curiosity about automotive evolution
• EV rally participation requires different logistical planning than traditional motorsport, including charger scouting, redundancy planning, and real-time coordination

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