It looks like it comes from the deep-space planetary realms of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, but it was built for the most extreme environments on planet earth.

The story behind the VENTURI Mission 03 Antarctica dates back to 2009, when Prince Albert II of Monaco needed a vehicle to drive through the frozen desert of Antarctica during a three-week visit to this most inhospitable of continents. In the intervening years, the electric car company VENTURI has tested cold-weather vehicle prototypes in areas of northern Europe.

The result of all this work, the final Mission 03 Antarctica can handle extremely rough terrain in temperatures as low as -40 Fahrenheit. And because it is powered by a 2 x 60 kW continuous/2 x 100 kW peak electric engine, it introduces no pollution whatsoever into the pristine ecosystems through which it crawls. The Mission 03 Antarctica can carry up to three people as many as 28 miles at speeds that range from 12.5 to 15.5 miles per hour.