SEVA Meeting Minutes – January 2013
Tonight’s monthly SEVA meeting was a delightful hodge-podge of various topics ranging from energy, EV rally info, electric bikes, legislative ideas, field trip slide shows, charging station info exchange and more!
We had over 60 people on a dark and stormy night- wowie! Who’da thunk it all those years ago at Chuck Benson’s living when it was just Rich Rudman, Steve Lough, Chuck Benson, Dave Cloud and “a box of cookies”, says Rich
El SEVA Presidente Steve Lough opened the meeting with a moment of silence in remembrance of the late Don “Father Time” Crabtree, who passed away last month.
“Father Time” was an EV enthusiast, ICE-EV conversion master and EV race guy forever and well-know in the EV worlds. He will be much missed.
Some more difficult news that Steve passed on is that SEVA member Sandy Smith, wife to SEVA member Jeff Smith and stalwart SEVAmeeting raffle ticket organizer has had another stroke. Sandy: get well soon and we hope to see you, Jeff and your little blue ZENN back soon!
FROM PLUG-IN AMERICA:
Board member Sherry Boschart is making an EV Quilt out of old EV T-Shirts and asks that anyone who has an old T-Shirt from SEVA or from you EV dealer (i.e. TESLA shirts, LEAF shirts, Manzanita Micro shirts, etc.) send them to her to be added to the quilt. Quilt will be raffled off in the next PIA fundraising event www.pluginamerica.org
FROM VP STEPHEN JOHNSEN: (“Where have ya been, laddie?”)
-Dr. Johnsen, Stephen’s dad, *finally* received his long-awaited TESLA Model S!
We were treated to a bevvy of beautiful photos and tech talk about this amazing machine. which Stephen’s dad allowed him to take it up to 108 mph. Yikes!
-Stephen, Ron Easley and co recently attended a fire-sale of Azure in Bernadine, BC and came back with two truck loads of several liquid-cooled Siemens Motors,
one air-cooled Solectria motor and boxes of EV odds and ends. Talk to or email Stephen for specifics.
-Stephen and Ron Easley are also also building an equalizer system for A123 battery cells- if anyone has any old or somewhat old A123s lying around and wants them to be balanced, equalized and/or re-made into usable battery packs again, email Stephen.
From Garfield High School: TESLA MODEL S RAFFLE!
Once again, Garfield High in Seattle is raffling off a TESLA MODEL S (85W battery pack) for their College & Career Counseling Center. 1650 tickets will be sold. Each ticket is $100 a piece and your chances of winning are 1/1650
Considering the value of the prize, these are good odds and the College and Career Counseling Center is a very valued and need service that helps guide and channel and transition students into the appropriate post-high school college, tech school or job.
Please send checks made out to Garfield High School and send to:
Phillip Sherbourne
2369 Fairview Ave E. #1
Seattle, WA 98102
206.355.8034
WHO WANTS TO RALLY IN JUNE?
WASDOT’s Tonya Buell announces that there is going to be a Canada-Mexico
EV Rally (NOT a race) in June of 2013 and wants as many highway-capable EVs as able to join in the border-to-border fun to help promote the West Coast Electric Highway. I would LOVE to do this- except Zoe ZENN Car ain’t got the oomph…so drive one for me if you would by contacting Tonya.
TWO THUMBS UP FOR TEVA! (Tacoma Electric Vehicle Association)
Our sister EV Association in the next County has a Spiffy new meeting place with *count them) SIX charging spots at the University Place Library in Tacoma (“It’s even carpeted inside!”, says SEVA/TEVA member Jay Donaway, “we are a grown up EV association now”) Jay invites any interested SEVA member to join their TEVA counterparts their monthly meetings which are the FIRST WEDNESDAY of the month (Nextmeeting on Wed, Feb 6th, 2013)
FROM UW RACING TEAM & JAKE MILLER:
Hi all, as I said at the meeting, this year the University of Washington Formula Motorsports team will be building its first ever electric vehicle for competitions in Lincoln, Nebraska and Hockenheim, Germany. As most of you probably know, motors, inverters and batteries are quite expensive. Furthermore, manufacturers are unwilling to donate these products because their market is so small! To raise funds, we will be using a crowd funding website called Microryza, where users can donate to research that they find worthwhile. If you would like to help us out, please go to the link below, read a bit more about us and follow the instructions to donate!
https://www.microryza.com/
Thanks in advance!
—
Jacob Miller
University of Washington
Senior, Electrical Engineering
jkm89@uw.edu
(206) 250-0924
FROM DAN BENTLER Via Jay Donaway:
SEVA/TEVA Member Dan Bentler will be offering an “EV Electric Info 101” workshop on SAT JAN 12 at SOUTH PARK COMMUNITY CENTER from 12 pm- 4pm
Everything you wanted to know about how EV electrical stuff works but were afraid to ask in front of your friends!
PRESENTATION FROM LARRY GALES:
Larry Gales gave the club a power point presentation this evening called “The Role and Advantages of Small Electric Vehicles” that talked about how smaller EVs are coming more on line and CAN help the overall environment.
2013 SEVA LEGISLATION SEASON:
Mark Schiller announced a meeting with Jeff Finn that will take place tomorrow (now tonight) Jan 9 and encourages all ideas of what SEVA folks would like to see happen legislatively in the sate od Washington in 2013. Please email Jeff Finn or Mark with your concerns. Heck, email anytime before next month’s meeting- they will be bringing a platform to yay or nay at February’s meeting.
BYE-BYE (SORT OF) DAVE CLOUD:
Dave Cloud will be moving to YELM after many years on the East Side (“I can sell my house for $360,000 and buy the same space in YELM for $85,000…no brainer! But don’t worry, SEVA: I’ll still be around!) Good luck with the move Dave and we look forward to driving our souped-up EV’s down I-5 to your new home and shop soon! (Who wants to race down there> I dare ya! I dare ya!)
ON CLIMATE CHANGE:
Steven Lough recommends seeing the movie “Chasing Ice” about the melting ice caps- it is by a photographer who has been photographing the north and south poles for years and is literally watching the ice go away.
Currently showing at the CREST Movie Theater in North Seattle for $3 a pop.
FROM SEVA MEMBER DON BAHER:
Don reports that on his Nissan LEAF’s info panel he recently received message “Over 200 charging stations near you right now”- have any other LEAF owners seen this message on their screens? Do tell, do tell!
FROM JEREMY SMITHSON: SOLARIZE SEATTLE PROJECT:
Solarize Seattle is coming to the Phinney, Greenwood, Greenlake and Crown Hill areas this year. This is your opportunity to buy panels and installation in bulk with your neighbors.
Puget Sound Solar and Artisan Electric have been chosen to so the installations. INFORMATIONAL MEETING SATURDAY JANUARY 26 at the Phinney Neighborhood Association http://www.phinneycenter.org/
GO, “Mi-EV” & LEE CARLTON, GO!
Member Lee Carlton has been busy tripping as of late- meaning doing marathon road trips in his Mitsubishi MIEV. He recently completed a round trip from Seattle to Portland, back to Seattle then up to BC and Back. It took 17 quick charge stops. And to his surprise, he found out that NONE of the dealers at the Vancouver Mitsubishi dealer had any idea that there were DC fast charging stations on our side of the border! They were quite surprised when Lee showed up. Lee reported that there is a serious gap between charging stations on I5 Northbound between Olympia and Seattle…but that apparently there will be a DC charger going on line soon at Fife.
Another SEVA MEMBER spoke up (sorry, didn’t catch his name) that he has been writing BL!NK to ask why on earth there are more DC chargers in Oregon than WA and actually received a reply back that he showed the club and handed over to Steve Lough- the Bl!nk guys said that there are 16 more super chargers waiting to be installed around the State, but that Washington seems to “lack the political will” to get it done. An item for the Legislative Committee?
ELECTRIC BUSES ROLL IN WENATCHEE:
Some of you may have seen this in various news threads, but WENATCHEE, WA recently started running 2 public buses around town that are pure electric. Each bus makes a loop and then returns to the bus may to plugin and recharge. If anyone has a specific link to this, please share on the list (or re-share if it already was there) My apologies for not remembering who got up to share this at meeting, but my butt was getting sore from sitting and my brain beginning to fry (or if not merely beginning, continuing to fry) as this was all being bandied about towards the end of the evening
OK- that’s it- I think.
PLEASE ADD IN WHATEVER INFO Your Intrepid Note Taker (aka me) missed- I may be a girl, but I am so NOT a secretary as I can’t focus on two things well at the same time (i.e. listening a and typing on my iPad)
Plus, unlike the fabulous Cory Cross whom I’ve seen in secretarial action, I can’t touch type worth a damn. (But I can wield a chop saw and play complex jazz chords on my guitar just fine… go figure!)
-Deb Seymour (& Zoe ZENN Car, of course)
zenncar@debgoesgreen.com
-- Steven S Lough President: Seattle EV Association 206 524 1351 WEB: www.seattleeva.org