National Electric Drive Events in your area...

Met Mercat68 and other EV owners today. I'm on the left, Carl's Prime is on the right. Again, it was great to meet you Carl! The owner of the shopping center lets visitors charge up for free! The buildings are solar powered, with rain-storage silos that store water to irrigate the landscaping. And, there's a plant wall in the back near the chargers. We formed an EV owners club today. Great event, glad I went.

 

nice!

 

INTRODUCTION

About six weeks before the event, I was asked to liaison with the local car dealers.

PREPARATION

Wearing dress clothes and no tie, I visited Century BMW, Bill Penny Toyota, Bill Penny Mitsubishi, Landers Chevrolet, Landers Nissan, and the Volkswagen dealer with a letter that:

• Described the event: time, place, and goals
• Asked for help with suggestions like brochures and bringing a used cars with their asking price and options
• Suggesting their sales personnel could gain insights (i.e., we're not rabid environmentalists, just cheap!)

The letter included a Google map showing the parking lot at Whole Foods:

We use the west side, two rows and had a professionally installed tent in the northwest corner.

It is not enough to visit the dealers just once but go back weekly and follow-up with e-mai and phone calls. This emphasizes you're not a homeless guy trying to trick them out of some swag. They also pointed out the color glossies are not done since 'everyone uses the Internet' so we'd have to make our own.

I ordered a tent from Rocket City Party Rentals and table. Per their insurance requirement, the tent is anchored in parking lot by drilling holes to anchor. It is important to coordinate with the facility manager so they understood the holes drilled would be repaired by the rental company after the event and their inspection. We emphasized this is a safety issue which became evident the day of the event. Coordination and phone calls, follow-up early and let principals talk to each other.

The night before, I made two posters for plug-in hybrids and electric-only vehicles. Both posters has two sheets showing the PlugShare local to Huntsville and a larger scale going out over 150 miles:


Standing in a sunny parking lot that washed out the iPhone tiny screen while mumbling something about "PlugShare" doesn't work. The poster pages makes it real so they can understand how the local chargers integrate with shopping and chores.

The hybrid pages cover the BMW i3-REx, Chevy Volt, and Prius Prime:

I added the cost to drive 100 miles using local rates: $0.10/kWh, $2.50/gal regular, $2.75/gal premium. Unlike MPG and MPGe, seeing the costs for 100 miles makes it real.

I also had a graph comparing these three cars:

So I could clearly show the relative performance of the cars in EV or gas.

The electric vehicle (EV) pages cover the Bolt, Golf-E, Leaf, and top-line Tesla:

Again, the cost to drive 100 miles makes it real.

Working under the assumption that an EV owner will have either a gas/diesel car or a car rental on 'speed dial':

Two gas hybrids are the top rated Hyundai Ioniq Blue and Prius Two ECO. Next to them are two legal diesels again with the cost to drive 100 miles, $2.50/gal regular and $2.75/gal diesel.

DRIVE EV DAY

Starting at 9AM, I was a few minutes late only to arrive just before the party tent rental team. Two guys, they knew exactly what needed to be done. For good measure, Scott Hammond, the other coordinator and I went into Whole Foods and spoke with the manager to let him know we were starting. He'd heard about it so we provided details. This is what the tent and table soon looked like:


One end holds the EV poster so three people can look it together. The other end holds the plug-in hybrid poster. Be sure and bring 'blue' masking tape that can be pulled off without leaving a mark. Emphasize to any helpers that 'we are not in the business of saving tape but making sure everything won't blow away. We can get more tape but the posters are unique.'

Soon, the Chevy salesman arrived with a 2014 Volt and his standalone tent and table, and flyers. Two BMW salesmen arrived with a used BMW i3-BEV. We wanted the asking price and list of options because the affordable, used cars are can help people planning a next car decide to take the plunge. As we explained, the event insurance that Scott arranged (in coordination with the facility management company) did not include test drives on the property. However, owners could take people for test drives off the property and that worked out well.

So this is what it looked like:






Sorry about the Alfred Hitchcock moment. A reasonable crowd, we need to work on advertising the event in the future with social media, posters, and local news.

In summer, you get scatter rain showers with local gusts of wind. A tent looks a lot like a sail and you can cross oceans with them:


We had one gust that tugged on the anchors. Sad to say, the standalone tent tried to go 'walk about' until caught. I used one of the 'doggie poop' plastic bags to hold trash.

LESSONS LEARNED

You can't coordinate enough and nothing works as well as face time with follow-up email and phone calls. You're not being a pest as much as making sure they know this is a real event.

The organizers need to have two people on 'tent duty' so if one needs to demo drive a car, the other can continue handling queries at the table. It is also a place to have 'swag'. However, it makes sense to have chairs for visitors to get a little bent-knee time.

Given the heat, encourage visiting the facilities and 'wash your face and arms.' This will bring body temperatures down safely and dilute the sweat. Hydrate during the day. An ice chest with small water bottles for guests and possibly a roll of paper towels works too.

Trying to do technical stuff like coding BMWs while running a show takes hosts and coordinators out of the loop. The time to do 'technical stuff' is not when guests are wandering about.

Remind all owners and coordinators that September is model change over. This means dealers are often interested in clearing out the old models to make room for the new ones which makes it a buyer's market. Deals can be had so make sure everyone has the latest.

Bob Wilson

 

Behind Whole Foods in Ann Arbor Michigan

 

Just attended the electric drive event in Riverhead, NY. Nothing about the new leaf but there was a Prius Prime that we test drove. Also test drove a Tesla and used Ludicrous mode. It was slightly faster then the Prius!

All kidding aside, the event was great. Lots of Volts, Teslas, Bolts and Leafs. Also a C-max, Focus, and Soul. Knowledgeable and friendly people there educating the public about electric cars.

It was a mix of dealers and owners. The Prius Prime was there through a dealer and was an advanced model. Great to see it and the Volt side by side.

 

That's very cool. Zooming in on the video still, looks like it says 85-mile range? Love seeing a vintage kit like that retrofitted.

 

yup

 

What was the reaction to the prime with your guys’s events? I went to one in San Rafael CA, and let’s just say the reaction to the prime was very negative bordering hostile. I can see where they’re coming from. The prime is strictly a minimum compliance vehicle to get the CA HOV sticker, but I still would have liked people to be a bit more lukewarm about the car.

This was mainly the reaction from the VP of plug in America.

 

no negative comments that I can recall. most people were interested in the Prime asking various questions like "oh, it uses gas too" "that 36 mile EV range is not so bad after all"

 

I try to say with the EPA numbers if only because they are well documented. Beating them is easy enough but with someone who is new to the technology, I prefer to cite a credible if conservative source.

Bob Wilson

 

I did offer a disclaimer 36 in the summer and 25 in the winter

 

Good on the disclaimer.

Just a gentle thought. Our cars are so efficient we risk making our cars sound 'complex.' As @john1701a points out,"Just drive it." We can easily forget that to newbies, even the basic performance seems like magic.

Bob Wilson

 

This past week one of my coworkers said we were going to take my spaceship to lunch.

 

Funnily enough, I retired in May yet two of my former co-workers showed up. One I remembered but the other who was the 'new hire', the face was familiar but we'd never really collaborated. A few casual conversations but no real work. <sigh>

Bob Wilson

 

Spaceship? Nonsense, it's a batmobile.

 

nada nada nada nada........nada nada nada nada.............

 

Positive reactions at the Clarksville, MD, event. Don't understand the hostile reaction. Guess they fear what they don't understand

 

Mine is Blizzard Pearl.

 

I think this is a reason why so many people were turned off to hybrids in the early 2000s. Sure if you hypermile and don’t take it over 65mph, you’ll see 36 miles a charge. If someone buys the car and doesn’t see 36 miles though, they’re going to resent evs forever. That’s why it’s always good to go low rather than high. Even though it’s incredibly tempting because going to an ev event with a 25 mile range car can be somewhat embarrassing.