National Drive Electric Week

We stumbled upon an EV car show yesterday, just west of Knoxville. We were headed to an REI and the show was in the parking lot of an adjacent Whole Foods.

Maybe 25 EV’s in attendance, nary a Clarity. One couple expressed a lot of interest in ours, saying they couldn’t find one locally to look at.

Anyway, got info on a local EV club with regular shows on the second Saturday of each month. May try to check one out in the future.

http://www.knoxev.org/
 
Fast Eddie B said:
We stumbled upon an EV car show yesterday, just west of Knoxville. We were headed to an REI and the show was in the parking lot of an adjacent Whole Foods.

Maybe 25 EV’s in attendance, nary a Clarity. One couple expressed a lot of interest in ours, saying they couldn’t find one locally to look at.

Anyway, got info on a local EV club with regular shows on the second Saturday of each month. May try to check one out in the future.

http://www.knoxev.org/
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Interesting. The event in Ann Arbor Michigan next weekend is also in the parking lot of an REI and Whole Foods.
 
MPower said:
Actually, a Tesla will set up a charging "schedule" for you in its navigation system or you can visit the Tesla trip-planner on their website.

When it can plug itself in (and I am richer than I am now or the price comes down by many $K), I will buy a Tesla.
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Very odd requirement. I am not aware of any car that doesn't require some interaction to refuel. Even in Oregon (where it is unsafe to pump your own gas), you have to give your payment, loyalty card, etc to the attendant. But I guess in NJ and OR, a gas car would do close to the equivalent of plugging itself in?

That being said, wireless charging for EV's is a definite possibility and some solutions are available (but with an efficiency penalty)
 
I went to the one near us yesterday with wife. We weren't very impressed, but did talk to a few Tesla owners. Although didn't really learn anything that I already knew.
 
Phil_Meyers said:
I went to the one near us yesterday with wife. We weren't very impressed, but did talk to a few Tesla owners. Although didn't really learn anything that I already knew.
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Not impressed because no Claritys? Not impressed because all Teslas? Not impressed because not many cars showed up? You're a member of this forum--of course you didn't learn anything because you already read everything here.
 
I attended the event in Syracuse, New York today. Only Clarity there but there was three other PHEV models there, too. Most were Tesla Model 3s. No Konas or Niros as they have not gone on sale in upstate NY yet. It was a fun time meeting owners of full EV and PHEV vehicles.

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I even cleaned my the engine bay for the day.
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Here I am next to a couple of Chevy Volts (Red was a 2013, Blue was a 2017).
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Went to my second Drive America Week event yesterday in swelteringly hot Abita Springs, LA - and had a very good time! Just about 30 vehicles ranging from a Model X towing a large boat to a locally-made electric 4-wheel ATV. Quite a few Model S and Model 3, four Model X (including the one with the boat), a Gen 1 and Gen 2 Volt (no Bolts), a Leaf, a C-max Energi and I was the SECOND Clarity PHEV to arrive! To respond to Phil_Meyers, above, it wasn't so much about what I could learn as what I could TEACH - and also the sense of fellowship and camaraderie that develops among EV and PHEV drivers. People had a LOT of questions about what and why a PHEV - and were amazed by the size and comfort of the Clarity interior.
 
Steven B said:
We need to provide attendees interested in Honda plug-ins (currently only the Clarity) with a meaningful way to get in touch with Honda and complain about the inability to purchase one outside of California. Who has a good idea or contact info for Honda in this regard? Complaining to their local dealers is a dead end.
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Local dealer in AL says: California is a different market. For other Honda cars where a specific model (certain features) was available in Cal and the local dealer tried to call several Cal dealers to get one, many would not even return the phone calls. If a Cal dealer doesn't sell the car in Cal, they won't get the Cal incentives that Honda may be offering them, so some reluctance to give them away to other states' dealers.

My instructions to interested parties will be to go the local dealer and try to order one but be prepared to wait six months with no certainty.
 
We have 3 Clarity Electric's registered (one is mine), plus one that is set up for test drives .
Only one PHEV and that is a CPO we are borrowing from the local dealer (they were going to fully participate until the "no cars for you" was issued by Honda).
Have about 90 vehicles (plus ~25 test drive/show vehicles) and 400 people registered at this point. Oh, and 2 electric semi trucks, a bus, the White Zombie, a converted mini pickup and garden tractor.
Should be fun. Good news is I have some great volunteers chipping in to take over some big chunks of responsibility this year, so I might actually get to see a few of these things!

Test drives:
  • Audi e-tron
  • BMW i3
  • BMW 530e
  • Chevrolet Bolt EV
  • Chevrolet Volt
  • Honda Clarity Electric
  • Jaguar I-Pace
  • Porsche Cayenne SE Hybrid
  • Kia Niro PHEV
  • Kia Niro EV (likely but not 100%)
  • Hyundai Kona EV
  • Hyundai Ioniq EV
  • Volkswagon e-Golf
  • Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV
  • Fiat 500e
  • Tesla Model 3
Seems like I'm forgetting something on the list, but close enough.
If you're in the Portland, OR area, come check it out
https://driveelectricweek.org/WilsonvilleOR
 
Once a week I drive by an ultra-rare-in-Michigan Fiat 500e. It has California HOV parking stickers on it. The 500e is always in the same parking spot in front of some apartments and never plugged in when I drive by, so I wonder if it's OK. Anyway, I made a poster for Sunday's Drive Electric Week event in Ann Arbor (at the top: Fiat 500e Welcome!) and put it under his windshield wiper. I hope it doesn't cause agony if the car is always in the same parking spot because it doesn't run.
 
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Well, we counted a touch over 400 test drives at our event yesterday. Only a few on the Clarity Electric which was one of the cars Forth Mobility had available at our event. had a CPO Clarity PHEV from the local dealers, but no test drives available.
Had a dragster as a last minute addition, the Daimler folks with the semi and box truck were great attractions.
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Had a great turnout at the Atlanta event that I went to yesterday at Lenox Mall. Seventy vehicles, of course half of them Teslas. Mine was the only Clarity there out of the four that had registered so I'm glad I was there, most people had never seen one before.

The big surprise was a Porsche Taycan (second photo below) which had been unannounced as the organizers were apparently only given confirmation the day before. This was one of if not the first public displays of the Taycan in North America, just two weeks after its debut at the Frankfurt auto show.

Below is my unofficial count of the cars in attendance.

27 Tesla Model 3
5 Tesla Model S
3 Tesla Model X
1 Tesla Roadster
1 Porsche Taycan
2 BMW i8
6 BMW I3
2 Jaguar I-PACE
3 Chevy Volt
5 Chevy Bolt
7 Nissan Leaf
1 VW e-Golf
1 Audi e-tron
1 Audi e-tron A3 PHEV
1 Honda Clarity
1 Chrysler Pacifica PHEV
1 Kia Niro PHEV
1 Kia Niro EV
1 Kia Soul EV
1 Citroen C-Zero


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I attended both the New Port Ritchey and Oldsmar/Tampa Bay Area NDEW events.
About 20 EVs showed up in New Port Ritchey and 30+ in the Oldsmar event. We had two Clarity at each event (me and the same person went to both) and I was surprised at the interest people showed for our cars. Will probably post some pictures later.
 
The predicted rain stayed away and the weather was perfect for the Ann Arbor NDEW event. The most interesting car for me was a home-brew Fiat X1/9 electric conversion. It had an 18 kWh set of batteries yet weighed less than 3,000 lbs. The Clarity PHEV wasn't any more well-known this year than it was at last year's event, so I got to explain it many times. Here's the chart I handed out to tweak the Tesla crowd.

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Your chart assumes no bathroom or meal breaks in 7+ hours. I don't know of many people that travel that way. Real world times would be nearly identical. Not sure why people need to spread misinformation to justify that the they chose wisely. Insecurity?
Spreading this type of nonsense at a NDEW is usually frowned upon.
 
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It's not so weird. It is possible to combine meal and bathroom breaks with charging . . . sometimes. But I noticed when planning my trip to Kansas from Vermont last year, if I wanted to stop and charge there were whole swathes of the route where the only charging stations were at non Honda dealerships or not near any amenities such as bathrooms or eateries. One was in the middle of nowhere. Checking it on google maps satellite view, I could see a couple of miles hike and still nothing that looked like amenities.

As for driving without a break, not unusual for a carpool headed out after work on Friday to a dance weekend 7+ hours away. Bathroom breaks, yes, meals not so much --that's what brown bags and/or fast food are for. Just swapping drivers and napping in between shifts at the wheel then straight onto the dance floor for 3 days then after the last Sunday afternoon dance, into the car and head back.

Not me of course, the only time I ever did anything like that was when I was headed from Russellville AR to Knoxville TN via Little Rock (to drop my cousin at the airport on the way). I was the only driver because my passenger was blind and I needed to get to the dance that evening in Knoxville. I don't think I could have done it if I had been driving electric.
 
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