Monthly Archives: April 2019

Drive Electric Earth Day, Local EV Event

Drive Electric Earth Day 2019 Recap

Saturday, April 27, 2019 was the first Drive Electric Earth Day event in Satellite Beach at the Schechter Center. This was similar to our event we do every year in September where we give ride and drives in our cars around the block as well as answer all of the questions we can about driving electric. This time we were able to be a part of the Earth Day event the City of Satellite Beach was already planning. Since we are the ones that drive the cars every day to work, school, shopping, and visiting friends and family we are the ones to best answer real world questions about driving electric cars. We had 22 cars show up from many different makes: Tesla, Nissan, Chevy, Honda, Toyota, and BMW. One of the highlights of the event was a 21 foot center console boat that was on a trailer being towed by a Tesla Model X, the all electric SUV with a 5,000 pound towing capacity. You can find a video showing it being towed away in the album link below.

We talked to nearly 200 people and gave 21 test rides around the block. Everyone was surprised to find out how much power and acceleration every one of the cars we brought had. Even the low end models had faster off-the-line takeoff power than most normal gasoline powered cars. Most of the people we talked to agreed that their next car would be electric or a plug in hybrid.

We shared a few links to visitors such as:
Sierra Club EV Guide
Rivian Electric Trucks and SUVs
Via Motors Plug in Hybrid Work Trucks
Workhorse Plug in Hybrid Work Trucks

Here’s the full album to all the photos taken from the event:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/cgvUVGhZMRQvtZis5


Local EV Event

Earth Day at Enchanted Forest 2019 Recap

We were invited to bring our tent and electric vehicles to the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary natural park in Titusville for their Earth Day event again this year. We brought 3 cars this time: Chevy Volt, Tesla Model 3, and 2nd generation Nissan Leaf. We were able to talk to over 100 people as they came through to see the other vendors and exhibitors with eco-friendly goods and services. The native plants were a big hit with lots of people interested in getting their landscaping more drought tolerant and requiring less watering. The bee and butterfly friendly flowers were getting the most visitors to learn how to help the bee colonies grow as they are truly needed for our food crops.

Our cars were parked well into the traffic circle with the food trucks so grabbing a bite to eat around lunch time was very convenient. This also meant we couldn’t give any test rides since we were so close to the walking activity for visitors. We let everyone know about our upcoming event on the next Saturday for Drive Electric Earth Day in Satellite Beach. That event was the one with the test ride and drives. It is also a nation wide event put on by grass roots EV enthusiasts and owners like us with some help from Plug in America, the Electric Auto Association, and the Sierra Club. Look for the recap from that event next!

Here’s the complete photo album from the event: https://photos.app.goo.gl/opsDNQC2HhQPcdgV9

Monthly Meetup

April monthly ev meetup with visitors

We had our monthly meetup on the 2nd Sunday of the month instead of the first so we could have our visitors from Norway meet with us. They found out about us from the EV News Daily podcast. If you haven’t subscribed to it yet we highly recommend it! They just got their new Tesla Model 3 and their child is a student at FIT. Since they were visiting FIT anyway we thought it would be the perfect time to meet up and talk about electric cars and charging stations. They introduced us to a company in Norway called Zaptec that builds smart charging stations that can split up the power as more cars plug in. This is different from running a dedicated circuit from the breaker box to each individual charger. This way with Zaptec chargers you only need the one, big circuit and as each car plugs in it will slow down the charge to the other cars so you can have many more cars charging that would normally be allowed. This makes the most sense for apartment and condo complexes. Thai Thai House at Hammock Landing was a great spot to have our meetup and we’ll be back there again in the future. We agreed that next month we should meet at Ginger & Garlic in Rockledge.

Local EV Event

Kennedy space center earth day recap

We were invited for a 5th year in a row to bring some of our personal electric cars to the Earth Day event held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. We got to park our cars and set up our tent and table in the grass right next to the rocket park. Hundreds of visitors got a chance to sit inside, look around, and ask us all of their questions about our cars. As a bonus, the Space X Falcon Heavy launch was scrubbed from a previous day to today so we were able to watch it from inside the complex. The sonic booms could be heard as the two side boosters came back to land at the cape. Showing the benefits of driving on sunshine with solar panels on our roofs and more renewable energy getting added to the grid every day is one of the main points we like to talk about for Earth Day. Here’s some photos taken during the event:

Chevrolet Bolt
Toyota Prius Prime
Chevy Volt
Chevy Volt
Tesla Model 3

Local EV Event

BPS Varsity car show recap

Today we set up our personal EVs at the BPS Varsity Car Show that was held at the American Muscle Car Museum benefiting the schools’ automotive programs around Brevard County Florida. The trophies were all made by the students and looked VERY COOL. We were surprised to find out they even created some trophies specifically for the ELECTRIC CAR category! First place went to a Chevy Bolt and second place went to a Chevy Volt. There were a lot of attendees as well as classic and muscle car owners that came over to ask us all the usual questions about driving electric. After explaining everything the usual sentiment was that their next car was definitely going to be electric. One classic car owner even apologized to us for his car only getting 8 MPG! Lots of fun was had by all and many people learned a lot about electric cars.
Here’s a link to the full photo album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/su3ruTBYRrWwUgx56