More than 130,000 people took part in the recent National Drive Electric Week 2015, breaking the attendance record for the event set just last year, according to a recent email sent to EV Obsession.
Altogether, people in 187 different cities and attending 196 different events took part in the “Electric Week” — as compared to 150 different cities and 152 events last year (~95,000 attendees).
Following the successful end of this year’s event, organizers revealed that next year’s event dates are currently set for September 10th through 18th. So, those who missed it this year might want to make a note of that!
The email to EV Obsession provides more:
This year’s highlights included the world debut of the 2016 Nissan LEAF and the West Coast debut of the Chevy Bolt EV concept. These vehicles came together at Los Angeles’ event, which alone featured roughly 1,000 ride-n-drives out of nearly 9,000 total. Events from Hawaii to Maine also delivered parades, rubber-burning races, panel discussions and more. Every major plug-in model available in nearly every state was represented.
Drive Electric Week resulted once again in EV sales, such as in Hong Kong, whose celebration included 500 test-rides in a country with only 2,500 EVs on the road. Some events triggered first-time discussions with office holders and businesses about such EV advancements as boosting local infrastructure. Events also served as platforms for officials to make such announcements, with dozens of new charging stations inaugurated during the week. In Baltimore, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced the city’s installation of a fast charger, the city’s first, and a pilot program allowing city employees to test four different EVs for the city’s fleet.
“Once again we’ve seen that National Drive Electric Week produces concrete results that boost sales in addition to raising awareness of plug-in vehicles from neighborhood to board room,” stated Joel Levin, Plug In America’s executive director.
I attended 2 events.
Haha, How’d you do that. Wonder if you got counted twice. Maybe we’re down to 130,000 😀 😉
Went to the one in Syracuse on a Saturday, and in Rochester the following Thursday.
There was a guy with a Rav4 at both.
45kwh pack/110-150 miles! Awesome car.
Wow, don’t think many Rav4s made it out of Cali. And yeah, seemed like one of the better EVs. Too bad Toyota didn’t want to sell them.
He regularly gets 145 miles in summer, and it’s a BIG car.
To me, combined with the 10kw charger, that makes it a significantly better car than any of the other compliance cars I’ve seen.
Are there many 10kW L2 chargers available? I read that electric companies jack up (ie, quadruple) demand charges for 10kW (60A additional) compared to 6.6kW (30A additional), so places with charging stations only top out at 6.6kW.
No, not near me.
I didn’t know the electric companies did that, I assumed it was because most compliance cars can’t charge faster than that.
I read in EV forum about demand charge. Something that doesn’t make sense is that having 2 6.6kW L2 would be more than 1 10kW, so I take it with grain of salt. Another issue with 10kW would be thicker wires and higher power EVSE (bigger relays / switches), which would cost more.
Whatever the reason, all the public L2 I’ve seen are 6.6kW, so having 10kW vehicle charger is kind of a waste, both in cost and weight. Of course, it’s a different story if one has regular access to 10kW EVSE at home or work.
Yeah. And, again, Tesla enabled, right? Toyota is getting bolded more and more on my naughty list… so much potential, down the drain. Though, I also wonder how willing Tesla was to give batteries to Toyota when it didn’t have enough for itself. Not to say Toyota couldn’t copy Tesla’s approach…
I think Tesla wasn’t interested in the partnerships because Toyota (and Mercedes) weren’t serious about producing cars at volumes above compliance levels. Tesla’s mission is to electrify transportation, a couple thousand cars a year is a joke.
We have one in my neighborhood and see a few around town. Great range but a high price as well.
I went to the one in Santa Monica, CA before the Alt Car Expo. It was neat talking with other ‘local’ drivers. Many of them also went to the event in Los Angeles (the plot thickens, hah!)
Link broken! Want to see!
Try this one:
https://plus.google.com/photos/+KyleField/albums/6196369926372610385
I went to Los Angeles and San Diego events. LA had Bolt which you couldn’t even touch, and reps didn’t know anything. But worse, they didn’t even mention SparkEV. SD had flag for SparkEV for test drive, but no car. It’s like GM doesn’t want to let people know that it even exists. Or are they just completely sold out that they couldn’t even bring one to EV event?
I had this posted on my SparkEV rear window. Guy on Leaf didn’t know such quick EV lease could be cheaper than $1500 used car until he saw my poster!
http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2015/09/why-sparkev-by-sparkev-blogspot.html