Monthly Archives: August 2014

EV related Blog Post

EV Charging at Epcot

After hearing that Epcot installed two dual Level 2 EV charging stations the SCEV Drivers, being a short hour and twenty minute drive away, decided we needed to head over and check them out.

Epcot EV parking signage
Epcot EV parking signage

So last Sunday afternoon we loaded up and took the Chevy Volt over to Orlando, FL to Disney’s Epcot center to test the brand new chargers. Over the past few months there has been a growing number of people contacting WDW pushing for the installation of chargers. Josh and Brenna had tweeted and e-mailed on a few occasions letting them know that they needed to catch up with their California counterpart and get some charging stations installed. We mentioned we were not going to visit the happiest place on earth until they installed some charging stations. Being people of our word as soon as we plugged up we headed over to the guest services counter and purchased two seasonal passes.  We let them know that the reason we purchased them was a direct result of the installation of these chargers. This serves as a very good example on how installing charging stations can attract new business.

The Volt Charging at Epcot
The Volt Charging at Epcot

Details about the charging stations:
They are installed at the very front of the Epcot center parking lot near the monorail station located near the handicapped rows. Unfortunately you still have to pay the $17 to park like normal (unless you have annual passes) in addition to the cost to charge. When headed in they will try to direct you down a row before you get to the spaces. You will have to tell the parking attendant that you drive an EV and need to use the charging station and they will let you pass them. You have to turn down the row before the station and take it all the way up and around to get to the stations due to the one way set up. Once you arrive you will see two, dual J1772 level 2 stations from ChargePoint serving the first four parking spaces with 4 total J1772 plugs.

Charge Point price details on Epcot 1
Price Details on Epcot 1

They charge 35 cents per kWh with a minimum of $1.50 but there’s no limit to how long you can park there. We parked, plugged in, and swiped the ChargePoint card and were on our way. We arrived at 5:30 pm and left after the park closed. It is nice to be able to park there, take a bus or monorail to all the other parks and come back to a fully charged EV.

Volt trip charge results
Volt trip charge results

A full charge on the Volt will cost about $4.50 making it a  bit expensive but worth it for the up front parking and not having to use as much gasoline as it would without the charge. Disney World is about 80 miles from home so we were able to go 40 miles there on electric power from home, then use about a gallon of gas to get there. We left with a full battery so we got 40 miles back on electric power from Disney then another gallon of gas to get home. So we spent about $5.75 on electricity and only 2 gallons of gas for the whole trip.

Thanks for the charge, Disney!

 

EV News

Renovo Motors Electric Shelby American Supercar

It looks like there’s more people getting into the electric car game every day.  Today is no exception.  Here’s the latest offering from Renovo Motors in Silicon Valley, California.  They’ve built a BEAST of an electrified Shelby.  1000 lb. ft. of INSTANT torque, 0-60 in just 3.4 seconds, and a super fast recharge time of 30 minutes.  Watch the video and tell us if it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up or not.   http://www.carswithcords.com/renovo-motors-debuts-electrified-shelby/

It seems that Silicon Valley is definitely becoming the Detroit of the electric car revolution.  It looks like Tesla Motors is finally starting to see some sort of competition.  We’ll wait until we see the price and final specs before we can really compare it to something like the Tesla Roadster.  The Tesla Roadster’s base price was somewhere around $109,000 so we’ll see if the Renovo Coupe comes in close to this price.

http://renovomotors.com/

Renovo Motors Electric Shelby Coupe

Local EV Event

August’s EV Event Recap

This past Sunday we held August’s EV Event at The Mansion in downtown Melbourne. The Mansion is walking distance to the city hall CHAdeMO Level 3 fast charger,  there are no L2 chargers in the area yet. We were able to park almost all of our EVs right out front which was convenient for a nice photo opp.

Owners of electric vehicles pose for a photo
SCEV Drivers line up for a photo in front of The Mansion restaurant in Melbourne, FL

Overall we had another great turnout of EV drivers for the first Sunday  meet up.  When we arrived we saw a blue Ford C-MAX Energi in the parking lot and wondered who’s it was and if they were there for the meeting. It was later determined that they were not attending the meet up so we left them one of our cards in their driver window.  Hopefully they’ll email us back and join the group! In a fun coincidence we found out our waiter also drives a Ford C-MAX Energi so of course we gave him one of our cards to join the group.

During the meeting we showed the new group logo to everyone. To see both styles check out the Facebook page.

SCEVlogo

Brenna helped design the logo and we had positive feedback on it. Almost everyone agreed they would pay for a polo shirt with our logo and possibly a t-shirt for National Drive Electric Week with  logos and the event date on it.  We are looking into tee and polo shirt pricing so get ready to answer the “what size shirt do you wear” question we’ll be sending out soon.

Yellow Tesla Roaster
Tesla Roadster at the SCEV Drivers August meet up.

We saw a lot of familiar faces this time around and we finally met Jordan T., one of the newest members and had fun checking his Tesla Roadster.  Very sharp!  While we didn’t know what he looked like he made it easy for us by sporting  his Tesla gear.

During the event we went over all the National Drive Electric Week Melbourne details we have so far. Brenna continues to work hard on the event  plan and coordination aspects. Once everyone was caught up on how far along we are with the planning Brenna received a round of applause for all her hard work.  We only have one more first Sunday of the month meet up before the event which will take place Sunday September 7th from 2-4 PM, location TBD.

We will also have another volunteer meeting just before the event so we can go over the final “battle plan” so everyone knows exactly how the event should go before we set up  bright and early on the 20th at 830 am at Melbourne City Hall.  Remember, if you haven’t signed up to Attend and to Volunteer for Melbourne’s event you should do so here.

Nine electric vehicle drivers pose for a photo sitting around a table at The Mansion
Current and future EV drivers pose for a photo during the SCEV Drivers August meet up at The Mansion in Melbourne, FL.

We hope to see you in September!