Hybridfest 2008 Report

[Prius Prime]

Hi everyone!

I am so glad I went. I had a great time and met some great people.

I did the MPG challenge. It was intense-trying to drive, look at the oddo, look at the map, watch for the signs, traffic and trying to drive for good mpg all at the same time. I managed 72.864 mpg--I had a time penalty (you got 2% for every minute over 51 minutes) My "raw" mpg before the time penalty was 82.9. It was fun. CONGRATULATIONS to Locutus (Jared) who not only won the Prius competion but the overall MPG competition. (my son won both SUV divisions-in the Ford Escape and Tahoe Hybrids)

One of the highlights for me was the Hybrid Parade into the fairgrounds. I got goosebumps when we (quietly ) drove our Prii in! There were more Prii than I have ever seen--BTW all the silver pine mica are in the Chicago/Wisc area. The hotel parking lot was cool--hybrids outnumbered the "regular" cars. There were a bunch of Insights too--you rarely see them, let alone a bunch of them. I got to meet and talk with so many people, some I "knew" from here and other forums--met Hobbit, Doc Willie, Okiebutnotfrommuskogee, Judy McFarland and Fiona, Neicy, Dr Evan, Locutus, Fire Engineer (he installed my EBH--THANK YOU SO MUCH!), pdk and I know I'm forgetting lots of others. Everyone didn't have their "handle" on their badge, so I may have missed them.

At the hotel for the first few days, I had the only super white! I got many complements. Another one was there on Sunday--they were driving away and I thought someone had my car!!

Hobbit did a great presentaion with good information. I have already used it--I never realized the air cond ran off the high voltage battery.

It's funny, we think of ourselves as the minority, but at Hybridfest we were the majority for a change.

I did get a new record on the way home--199.6 miles on the first PIP! I need to fill up, but I drove over 500 miles home at 60.1 mpg and I still have 2 pips left.

Sorry this is long, but if you are crazy about your Prius and you want to get together with other people who are just as crazy about theirs, go to Hybridfest! Of course, the Insights, Civics, Escapes and all feel the same way too. But we're all in this together.

I'm sorry that I missed saying good bye to people (I probably would have cried!) but maybe it's not goodbye, just hope to see you later.

I hope everyone got/gets home safely.

Donna

[seftonm]

Excellent job with the photos, Evan and sparkyAZ (sorry I did not get your name). As some have probably guessed from my avatar, I had the Golf TDI. I have to say it was great to meet everyone I talked to and was truly surprised at how accepting everyone was of my car. I expected a few responses like "that soot spewing POS doesn't belong" when I showed up for the mpg challenge but that didn't happen, which was great. I don't spend a lot of time on this forum, but did manage to put some faces to the few usernames and cars that I recognized. I hope you all enjoyed the weekend and hope to see you next year if I can make it.

[efusco]

It was good to have you there...frankly I think it took guts to show up and I'm glad you felt welcome.
Now, if we could get your soot spewing POS converted to Bluetec and make it a hybrid we'd REALLY have something!
BTW, I heard part of your talk and it seems you had a good audience. I didn't hear the entire thing but I liked the way you started off addressing some of the misconceptions and all.

[Ray Monroe]

Evan,
Great pictures! It was very nice to meet you and your family. I was the gray haired "old guy" that came up and introduced myself to you at the picnic on Friday. It was uplifting to see you and some others make HF a family event. Folks like you make it fun for new owners to learn about their car. Thanks for all you do.

[efusco]

Thanks Ray, it was great to meet you as well! Bringing my family was fun, but it changes the experience. I would have spent more time going to talks and being the Prius geek had they not been there, but instead we had fun doing family things.

[Boo]

Originally Posted by efusco

....Bringing my family was fun, but it changes the experience....

So true.

In all my travels, I've noticed the differences in how people treat or interact with me when I travel solo as opposed to when I travel as part of a couple or a family.

I've also noticed with the advent of digital photography, how taking a lot of photos changes the experience.

[freshmtt]

Originally Posted by seftonm

Excellent job with the photos, Evan and sparkyAZ (sorry I did not get your name). As some have probably guessed from my avatar, I had the Golf TDI. I have to say it was great to meet everyone I talked to and was truly surprised at how accepting everyone was of my car. I expected a few responses like "that soot spewing POS doesn't belong" when I showed up for the mpg challenge but that didn't happen, which was great. I don't spend a lot of time on this forum, but did manage to put some faces to the few usernames and cars that I recognized. I hope you all enjoyed the weekend and hope to see you next year if I can make it.

HI I saw you, not sure if you knew who I was, I kept a pretty low profile. I thought it was really cool how you participated in the MPG challenge!!

I hope you had fun, It's nice to see that some of our Canadian friends make that long trip down to visit!!

[seftonm]

Originally Posted by freshmtt

HI I saw you, not sure if you knew who I was, I kept a pretty low profile. I thought it was really cool how you participated in the MPG challenge!!

I hope you had fun, It's nice to see that some of our Canadian friends make that long trip down to visit!!

Hi Michelle, I'm not sure if I saw you or not, there were so many people I got to meet that I never figured out who they were. I am pretty sure I did see your car while at the MPG challenge, did you have some dachshund stickers on it? I do remember those quite vividly.

[ericbecky]

Hybridfest 2008 was a great success!
People from over 25 different states attended and over 11,000 people were touched by Hybridfest.

Returning, as well as first time Members spent the weekend finding out more about each other and sharing stories and experiences.

The fun began on Thursday afternoon with the early-arriving members lending a helping hand at the Madison Days Inn hotel filling goodie bags in the conference room. I think the bags were filled in record time given the fact that there were so many people! After a quick call for reservations the group headed over to Benvenutos for a delicious Italian meal around 6:30. Although the gps directions were a little off, everyone did finally make it.

After dinner everyone headed back to the hotel (or campgrounds). I stopped off along the way to pick up a few copies of the newspaper that ran a nice Hybridfest article that day. Top Stories: Hybridfest head sees interest zooming There was plenty of greetings and discussion before everyone headed for bed.

Friday morning started early for some folks. Bradlee and some others started setting up the MPG Challenge route signs at 5:30 am! Later in the morning others headed up to Olin Park to get ready for the Media Division of the MPG Challenge which started at 10:00. I and a few volunteers headed over to the Alliant Energy Center and started checking in exhibitors and setting up the exhibit hall.

Hybridfest MPG Challenge partipants and observers continued to arrive at the park throughout the morning and at 12:30 pm the official driver's orientation meeting began.

The Hybridfest MPG Challenge saw more competitiors than any other year, and the competition saw an increase in complexity with the additon of a more challenging course and a tighter time element to help rule out excessively slow driving. There was also a 2% penalty for each minute over time, with a disqualification if the challenger did not arrive by the final drop dead time. The new format resulted in lower mpg results since the time limit was more realistic and was a good "stake in the ground" for how future sanctioned MPG Challenge events will be run.

Detailed results for the Hybridfest MPG Challenge can be found on the Hybridfest web site.

Friday afternoon continued with warm weather, and the beautiful view of the capitol building with the nice breeze keeping people's spirits up throughout the day.

Aft 6:00 Quaker Steak & Lube and GM helped to host the catered picnic. Thanks to Dennis and other volunteers for making sure we had enough soda and water to drink this year!

GM sent along a Tahoe and Malibu hybrid for people to view as well as engineer Alex Catalan, who provided an after dinner talk about where GM is headed.

Following the talk, Culver's provided us the fixings for an delicious ice cream social (well, technically a frozen custard social).

Announcements were next and then the much anticipated Hybridfest MPG Challenge results. Congratulations and pictures followed.

By 8:30 p.m. everyone had chipped in and cleaned up the shelter and we were ready to head back to the hotel for another late night of socialing before hitting the hay. (I don't know about eveyone else, but after picking up Felix Kramer at the airport at 9:30 and doing other late night errands I didn't get to bed before 1am.)

At 6:00 a.m. I found myself back at the exhbit hall continuing setup with the remaining exhbitors. This continued right up to show time at 10:00. Meanwhile back at the hotel people ate breakfast and those in the Owners Showcase gathered outside in the Fair's parking lot to arrange cars for parading into the grounds at 9:00 a.m. After a brief downpour, things cleared up for the rest of the day.

At 10:00 a.m. the doors opened to the public for Hybridfest 2008!

More volunteers than ever made the commitment to help at Hybridfest. The opportunities ranged from handing out progams to selling Hybrifest t-shirts to providing exhibitors a much needed break.

Activities for Saturday included test drives, talking with hybrid and alternative fuel vehicle owners, interacting with exhibitors, and more. Hybridfest Members checked in throughout the day and plenty of hearty handshakes and exclamations of "Good to see you again!" were exchanged. Throughout the day Members enjoyed the VIP Hospitality room and boxed lunch sponsored by Toyota.

The Saturday speakers included Felix Kramer of CalCars.org and plenty of people from the online hybrid, hypermiling, and altenative fuel communities. The list of speakers can be found on the Hybridfest web site.

More exhibitors than ever participated and the variety of transportation and green living booths were more than enough to keep visitors busy. You really had to work if you wanted to see it all in one weekend.

At 4:30 p.m. the Hybridfest People's Choice awards were presented. Toyota won the "Best Exhibitor Display" award for the second year in a row with their interactive "Highway to the Future" trailer. Jay Groh took honors for "Best Owner's Showcase Vehicle".

At 5:00 p.m. the public portion of the day ended, and we moved on to the cash bar before proceeding to the Toyota-sponsored dinner. The mood was set by a tuxedo-clad Bill Kinney (Hybridfest MPG Challenge Division Winner) playing dinner music on a grand piano. Wow! That guy is good.

A delicious meal was served at 6:00 complete with speeches, kind words from Felix Kramer, and other announcements from the Hybridfest planning committee. Some of the event sponsors like Ecomodder, Johnson Controls, and CleanMPG joined us, too. During my speech I referenced a song that inspired me during the months of Hybridfest planning call "Be The Change" by Tommy Fields. You can check out that song and lyrics on his web site. tommyfieldsmusic.com

The dinner ended with the presentation of awards and door prizes. Thanks to Go Hybrid, JuicedHybrid.com, Coastal E-Tech for the goodies.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel for another late night. George Gladic provided a slide show of how he added Plug-In capability to his Prius, meanwhile Matt provided rides to everyone in his human-electric hybrid Twike. Of course there was plenty of kibbutzing in the hotel lobby including discussion about member Ray Holan's informative book "Sliding Home" that details how to your car on veggie oil. (It can be purchased many pkaces. Here's one http://www.goldenfuelsystems.com/products_books.phpt.) In the hotel parking lot, Wayne Mitchell continued his quest to retain the title of most engine block heaters installed by one man. He did them all for free and refused to accept any money. Truly an altruistic guy.

Too soon, Sunday morning arrived. There was breakfast in the hotel for the hotel guests, and I heard rumors that more than a few of the Hybridfest Members who stayed at the campground snuck into the hotel to escape the miquitos and eat a good breakfast meal. You know who you are.

From 8:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. Member-Only special presentations were given in the hotel conference room and behind the wheel training went on in the parking lot. Thanks to all who made this possible.

Also at the hotel in the morning, goodbye's were exchanged with those who could not stay for the day.

At noon Hybridfest again was open to the public. Test drives from Toyota, speakers, and exhbitors continued throughout the day. In addition to Felix Kramer, the other featured speaker, Mike Granoff of Project Better Place joined us.

Sunday is always a good day to catch up on all the exhibits you may have missed on Saturday. Between all the Hybridfest exhibits, and the Dane County Fair in which Hybridfest is located, you could never see it all.

A123 converted a Prius from Wisconsin Clean Cities into a PHEV, and even Ricardo Bazzellera from Hymotion was on hand to see it happen.

With all the activities, the day flew by and at 5:00 p.m. the official end to Hybridfest 2008 was announced. Shortly thereafter, the volunteers went to work helping exhibitors out of the hall, as well as helping the planning committee load up all of Hybridfest's stuff into cars. By 5:50 (record time I think) we headed over to Linda's to unload all the stuff and then continued on to Culver's on Todd drive for an after event get together. A few people who didn't help with the cleanup joined us, too.

The food, fun, and camraderie continued for quite a while. Most people stayed until the sun went down, and so ended another fun Hybridfest event. The months of planning, and countless hours of work really showed through with the smoothness of this years event. At home I saw another nice Hybridfest story on the 10:00 news. ttp://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8705466

There are literally hundreds of other details I could add to this account given the number of people I met, and experiences I took in. I want personally thank everyone who helped make Hybridfest 2008 possible.

Words could never describe the full extent of everything that goes on at Hybridfest. I encourage you to consider joining everyone at Hybridfest 2009 and experience it for yourself. Next year's Hybridfest will be the third weekend in July at the Alliant Energy Center. We hope to see you there!

[freshmtt]

Originally Posted by seftonm

Hi Michelle, I'm not sure if I saw you or not, there were so many people I got to meet that I never figured out who they were. I am pretty sure I did see your car while at the MPG challenge, did you have some dachshund stickers on it? I do remember those quite vividly.

Yes, that was my car, I have lots of Dachshund stickers and the license plate. I sat at your table Friday night at the picnic dinner at the park. I was at the end of the table and initially was sitting alone until Ray Monroe and his wife Joyce joined me a few minutes into dinner.