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News media release Friday, January 12, 2007
Hans Tholstrup - a profile
Hans Jeppe Boel Tholstrup was born in Denmark November 8 1945 and was raised and educated there. He says he was reborn in Darwin, NT, in 1965 and has since taken Australian citizenship.
 By age 16 Hans had travelled through Europe by bike and mo-ped.
At 18 he hitchhiked through Europe and Asia, finally arriving in Darwin.
His first job, as a jackaroo was followed by mining exploration, creating the capital to start as an independent buffalo shooter. Other jobs included driving ambulances, road trains and 'dozers.
His 'young mans growing pains' included motorbike riding, parachuting (including breaking his back) and later car racing and rally driving
Hans hails from two successful families, one starting the LPG business, the other established Danish Blue Cheese. Consequently being a 'first' appealed and so he was:
- First to fly solo around the world without navigation aids or crew, 1972-3,
(in a single-engine 105hp Grumman AA1B trainer, after a 10-day learn-to-fly course).
- Fastest drive time from northern tip of Europe to southern tip of Africa, 70s.
- Fastest motorcycle circuit around the world (BMW), 1974.
- First motorcycle crossing of Australia east-to-west, 70s.
- First 4X4 solo crossing of Australia east-to-west, 1978-9.
- First south-to-north car crossing of Australia, including self-propelled crossing of Bass Straight on a rubber raft with the car (Mini Moke) on board, 1979.
- First open boat trip around Australia, world's longest outboard engine trip, 1979. Navigation famously consisted of 'keeping Australia on the left'.
- Created & had built world's first solar-powered car, 1981.
- First solar car to cross a continent (with racer/engineer Larry Perkins, from Perth to Sydney, 1982).
- First truck (semi) across Australia Perth to Townsville direct via a 1500km short cut.
- First bus (22-seat 4WD) across Australia Perth to Townsville direct via 1500km short cut.
- First to walk solo across the Simpson desert (a weight-loss exercise).
- First open boat trip from Australia to Japan, 2001.
- First production car (electric/petrol hybrid) Brisbane to Melbourne on a tankful, 2001.
- First to jump a double-decker bus across motorcycles – with co-adventurer Dick Smith the conductor on board the bus.
 Hans has raced at Bathurst three times, in a Datsun 1600 in 1969 and 1970 and in a Falcon GTHO in 1972. He finished the 1977 London-Sydney Marathon (in a Moke) and won his class in several economy runs in the 70s and 80s.
In 2003, he bet Hyundai that on the same 540 litres of petrol a V8 Supercar racer uses in the Bathurst 1000 km race, he could drive a Hyundai Getz XL ten times that distance. He made it easily, using just 465 litres to cover the 10,000km from Darwin to Brisbane via Perth, an average of 4.65 litres/100km. After that he traded his Toyota tray for a Getz towing a box trailer made narrower and longer to fit into the car's aerodynamic envelope and has since driven it over 100,000 trouble-free km, many over gravel back roads and farm tracks.
In December 2006 driving a seven-seat Hyundai Santa Fe CRDi turbo-diesel automatic, he was the first to tow a caravan between Sydney and Melbourne on a standard tank of fuel, achieving 8.92 litres/100km (32mpg) over the 875 km trip. This followed an unhitched single tank range run in a manual Santa Fe CRDi in which he drove 1777 kilometres on the car's standard 75 litre tank from Adelaide to Port Macquarie via central Sydney and Newcastle, achieving a trip average of 4.67 litres/100km (60.5mpg).
Hans' less successful adventures include:
- A solo Atlantic crossing in an open boat, (pack ice foiled, but he made it with help).
- Flying a plane to the South Pole (plane crashed in Columbia).
- His marriage (also crashed).
- A solar-powered boat trip from Darwin to Japan (pirates).
- A postie bike crossing of Australia (fell off bike, broke bones).
- Establishing a native forest plantation in NSW.
Hans Tholstrup has devoted the past 30 years to renewable energy after becoming interested in energy conservation and alternative sources thereof in the first oil crisis in 1973.
He acknowledges that he had been a big consumer of finite fossil fuel.
Following his creation of the world's first solar car in 1981, Hans Tholstrup became known as a 'futurist', which supplanted his 'adventurer' tag.
Hans enjoyed the fun and popularity of being an adventurer and believes that many are born adventurers but are talked out of pursuing their adventures.
He is frustrated that people, especially the influential and powerful, will not accept that oil and coal are finite fossil fuels and have been slow to recognize climate change implications of profligate petrol consumption. He believes that to have a sustainable future we must press for renewable energy and in the meantime use the most frugal practical cars, which are diesels.
He won the International Energy Agency "Personal Award" for 2006 for his outstanding commitment in electric and hybrid vehicle development, presented last month in Japan. Despite this, he believes high technology diesel cars driven intelligently can out-perform hybrids and are the immediate answer to economical and clean personal mobility.
He asks why do the Greens object to forestry when it is a sustainable, renewable resource industry and they don't object to air conditioning homes, cars and planes?
He would like people to be practising futurists as we must pass on to the next generations what we have enjoyed.
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Further information:
Richard Power, General Manager-Public Relations
Hyundai Motor Company Australia Pty Ltd
E richard_power@hyundai.com.au
W www.hyundai.com
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