Hyundai organizes a new edition of The Children's Desert, the solidarity adventure that for 20 years has been bringing help in the form of school supplies to a depressed area in the south of Morocco. It is a long, hard and demanding route, made up of the models of the Korean brand Kona, Tucson, Santa Fe, Staria and, also, a unit of the 100% electric Ioniq 5. The idea of adding an electric car to the caravan came from Leopoldo Satrústegui, president of Hyundai Spain, in the 2023 edition.
“We will be the first to go down to the south of Morocco, to the dunes of the desert, with an electric car,” Satrústegui told Nacho Salvador, director and ideologist of the Children's Desert. And this year, as the experience went really well, the Ioniq 5 returns to the desert, driven, once again, by Nacho Salvador. “In the end, it was easier than expected. And we didn't have much time to prepare it,” the caravan director explains to us.
You have to organize everything very well to avoid surprises. Traveling in an electric car through Morocco is not the same as traveling through Spain. Not at all. “Morocco is very far from what we have in Spain as a public and private network of chargers,” explains Salvador. And not only that. “There is a great lack of knowledge about everything that surrounds the electric car. Let's say it's not a priority."
“Although this year everything is easier. Last year we were going a little blind... And to travel with an electric car you have to plan a lot for the chargers," admits the ideologue of this solidarity action, who points out that "In the south we had it solved, but we were worried about the north. All the mobility maps, the websites we consulted to locate chargers had errors. And when we called to get information asking about a charging point in such a place, they didn't say: what's wrong, there's nothing here…”
So they had no choice but to mount a generator (at 11 kW) on the organization's assistance truck. “But it turned out well, we woke up…” For example, next to Meknes they found a hotel with a 50 kWh charger, but no one had used it yet and the staff was very curious to see how it worked. “We had to show them how it worked,” explains Salvador. And he adds that “it is also curious that in those places in Morocco you do not pay by kW, but by time.”
“In Erfoud, for example, which is somewhat the base of the expedition, we use portable chargers in the hotels that we carry in the car. They are small and fit very well. The only thing we need is a three-phase plug and we usually always have a very good willingness to help us from the people at the hotels. An electrician from the Erfoud hotel connected the charger to the hotel switchboard for us, and that is what we will do this year.”
The Children's Desert caravan starts in Tangier, goes down to Erfoud, to reach the dunes of Merzouga. The return passes through Fez, Chauen and, again, Tangier. There are more than 2,000 kilometers through Morocco. Nacho explains that “the first day, to Erfoud, there are already 600 km. Then, stages of about 100 km are made each day, to visit towns and schools.”
And he continues: “the electric car is very sensitive to speed. Last year I was a little afraid because the Ioniq 5, like this year, was at the head of the caravan. I was afraid it might delay the rest, but in the end it was no problem. And the fact is that you don't run and driving in those conditions favors the consumption of the battery of an electric vehicle.”
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is not an SUV, it is a passenger car. This year they have prepared it a little more: "we have raised the suspension, we have put a much thicker underbody protector and the Hankook tires that all the other cars have."
“They explain to us that in 2026 there will be about 10,000 charging points throughout the country. In fact, this year there are already more chargers than last year. In Meknes, for example, we have located three that operate at 50 kW, which is very good. And this year when we passed through Fez, we have already located some 50 kW Teslas.”
With the planning of this edition they can even do without the truck's generator. Additionally, the temperature at this time of year helps conserve the battery. "It is not so hot. On the contrary, we passed through areas of the Atlas where there is usually snow,” says Nacho Salvador.
The Ioniq 5 that participates in The Children's Desert driven by its director has a 77.4 kW battery, four-wheel drive and an approved range of 454 km. It measures 4.63 meters in length, with a trunk capacity of 531 liters, plus another 24 liters in the front space. With 325 HP of total power, it reaches 185 km/h and accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in just 5.1 seconds. Although with the additional weight of the skid plate and the special tires these figures may be reduced.
Hyundai dealers have once again joined forces to collaborate in this solidarity initiative. Thus, for each test carried out by customers in the dealerships from February 1 to 29, the brand has donated 5 euros.
With the money raised, two libraries will be built. One of these libraries is part of one of the special actions carried out in the 2024 edition of The Children's Desert. An action that also serves to visualize the change of the trip in the solidarity section, since it has gone from distributing material to the towns through which it passed, almost without prior planning, to anticipating and covering the needs of the populations according to demand of this.
In 2005, The Children's Desert traveled to Morocco with a truck loaded with backpacks with school supplies and its first stop was in a small town located in the middle of the desert, in whose school, then made of adobe, the first delivery of material was made. of the history of the trip. 20 years later a library will be built, which joins the actions that the Desierto Children Association has been carrying out over time in that town.
Another of the great values of the trip is the participation of volunteer opticians from the Alain Afflelou Foundation, who since 2012 have been collaborating in this solidarity project, checking the vision of families without resources who live in the desert and handing out glasses, prescription and sunglasses, so necessary in this area to protect the eyes against ultraviolet rays.
In total, six opticians are in the caravan, accompanied by the foundation's delegate in Morocco. The six volunteers, who come from Seville, Madrid, Valladolid, Granada and Bilbao, will carry out checks in the different locations that the caravan travels through the desert.
In the last edition, they checked the eyesight of nearly 500 people residing in Fezzou and other nearby towns. In those reviews they found people with prescriptions so high that they were practically blind and had never worn glasses in their lives.
“Like every year, we come with the hope of changing the lives of many people by improving their vision thanks to access to prescription and solar glasses. Opticians-optometrists do a great job with generosity and solidarity that encourages us to continue participating in this action,” comments Susana Ortega, director of the Alain Afflelou Foundation.
Other vitally important collaborators are Indo Optical, donating the glasses lenses that will be given to people who have their eyesight checked, and the Jaen company Bujarkay, which with its truck guarantees the solidarity logistics of the trip, since it is in charge of transporting all the solidarity material that is distributed in schools and associations.
