Veronika Wright grew up in Austria watching the American TV show “The Gilmore Girls” and dreaming of driving a tan Jeep Wrangler like Lorelai Gilmore.
Now Wright lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is the proud owner of her dream vehicle. But she’s working to make it better than Lorelai’s. She and her husband are converting the Jeep to run on electricity.
Wright has a Ph.D. in physics and used to work as a battery simulation engineer.
“This really was a lot of fun, and I got very, very passionate about batteries,” she says.
She wanted to apply her technical knowledge to a hands-on project and share her enthusiasm for electric vehicles.
So she created a YouTube channel where viewers can follow each step she takes to electrify the Jeep — and learn about the cost of the project and the challenges she faces.
She hopes it gets more people excited about going electric.
And when the project is done, Wright hopes to surprise people when she pulls over to charge up her Jeep Wrangler.
“I am looking forward to pulling up to a charging station and then people will be like, ‘What is this girl doing here, thinking she can – this is not a gas station,’ you know, and having these moments where you then just charge it there,” she says. “I think this will be a lot of fun.”
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Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy/ChavoBart Digital Media