Meet our advisors
A venture like Project ECARUS needs fresh ideas across a range of topics.
After all, we are not “just” building a prototype for an electric car. We are also developing a solar power plant and an expedition shelter. Luckily, we found a bunch of great people with great minds to help us out.
Thorsten
Electric drive insights
Thorsten and his wife Danja drove a super-cool 4x4 desert explorer from Germany to the Cape of Good Hope a few years ago. Our paths crossed in the dunes of Oman.
Thorsten helped us when we realised how little we knew about the various mechanical and electronic aspects of Project ECARUS when we started off - about electric motors and drive systems, as well as route planning, given their extensive experience as overland travellers.
His day-job in automotive R&D, including designing electric Porsches, certainly doesn’t hurt, either. Thorsten has been a great source of experience and challenge, especially during early motor and gearing reduction combinations, helping us navigate the wide range of options we looked at.
Sam
Genius pragmatism
For a number of years, we were lucky to have Sam as a neighbour. Sam and Hannes have braved many a dune, desert camp and build-challenge together. Sam also deserved special credit for sparking the idea to convert a Pinzgauer to electric, rather than a G-Wagon.
Sam brings pragmatism, common sense and an inexhaustible knowledge of what, from where and best done how. With his engineering background and steel-industry experience on top of it all, he is Project ECARUS’ driveway guru.
Ayham
Solar systems expertise
Ayham knows a lot about solar systems, having built hundreds of megawatts in desert, marine and other environments across the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
He is a creative mind, a family friend and he rocks at educating the Project ECARUS builders on all things solar.
With Ayham’s help, we have equipped overlanders with small-scale systems to power auxiliary equipment. Next step: the entire electric propulsion.
Popeia
Design artistry
Popeia is a natural-born artist and designer who brings creativity, style and killer dance moves to every endeavour.
As a classically trained animator, she is famous for her character designs and digital artistry. She spent much of her career working for big-name international brands and we are lucky to have her on board. We are especially grateful for her unique talent of turning our doodles and over-excited briefings into coherent designs – and we simply love the logo she developed for Project ECARUS!
Watch out for more of her catchy visuals as we go along.
Chris
Data analytics
Chris rocks, topping us other geeks on data, analysis and creating insightful information from a wealth of data.
Chris is a guy with unlimited vision and enthusiasm when it comes to renewables, innovation and information - and we're benefitting greatly from his tech-startup background, his experience in large scale wind and solar, and analysis of electric vehicle fleet data.
To help us stay on top of how battery, consumption, temperature, solar and topography data interact, Chris will do his magic.
George
Possibility mindset
"Everyone knew it was impossible, until a fool who didn’t know came along and did it.”
Albert Einstein
We believe Albert was talking about George when he made this statement. George joined the advisory team in his capacity of universal "this is how to make it possible" thinker. He is a philosophical tinkerer, spending much of his time toying with far-out ideas, from solid CO2 to Peltier Coolers to our Flux Capacitor.
Team ECARUS is grateful that George spends time helping us figure out stuff, whenever he's not busy building extraterrestrial communication lasers, teaching his pre-schooler off-road driving, fundraising for education projects in Kenya, inventing wooden furniture or sound-engineering for a well-known Austrian energy-drink-media-marketing-extreme-sports-superpower. Welcome Señor George!
Friedl
What is it all for?
Friedl is taking a 6x6 Pinzgauer around the world – yes, all around the globe. Somehow he thinks venturing across snow-covered Siberian mountains solo... in winter... at -42° C (-43.6 F)… is a good idea somehow.
We "met" Friedl on Youtube and were instant fans. Since then, we were lucky enough to meet him in person, crouched under a diesel engine on top of a mountain. That’s when we realised we have a lot in common beyond our Pinzgauer affection.
His contributions to the project since then go further than sharing experiences and skills; it's rather his take on the philosophy and meaning of travel that add enormous value to the thinking and doing of the ECARUS venture.
Follow his journey live on Instagram and Garmin inReach to be inspired, like we were.
MARKUS
55 years of Pinzgauer experience
Having Markus join our advisory team is beyond thrilling: not only is he a highly experienced automotive engineer and serious off-roader; to top it off, his father is one of the geniuses who originally invented the Pinzgauer (aka the best all-terrain vehicle ever)!
Markus brings an almost unfathomable degree of highly specialised knowledge and experience, not to mention his grasp of the latest technologies and trends in the mobility sector.
As you can see from these photos, Markus quite literally grew up around Pinzgauers and remains passionate about them until this day. A few years back, he even helped to build the world’s first natural gas-powered Pinzgauer (also pictured).
We are grateful that Markus supports Project ECARUS with his in-depth knowledge, considerable network of contacts and a composure that only decades of engineering experience can give you.
Find out more about his work here.
Read an interview with his father, Dr Egon Rudolf, here.