SEVA Meeting Minutes – January 2017
SEVA Meeting Minutes: January 10, 2017, called to order. Officers introduced. 30 persons in attendance.
LEGAL ANNOUNCEMENT, ANNUAL MEETING –President Johnsen made legal notification to the membership that our annual meeting will be the same time and place as the February meeting, except half an hour earlier (6:30). Notice is also hereby placed in the minutes, notice will be declared over the SEVA list (email) and notice will be given on the web page.
LEGAL ANNOUNCEMENT, ELECTION OF OFFICERS – The February meeting will also be the elections to fill the offices of SEVA Vice-President and SEVA Treasurer. A call for candidates was made by President Johnsen to the membership, and a call for candidates will be made again at the February meeting prior to voting. If anybody wants to nominate someone, please do so.
CALENDARS STILL FOR SALE – There are only a few SEVA calendars left. $20 each, contact Treasurer Yormark. mark.yormark@gmail.com or pick one up at the February meeting
EV OF THE MONTH – Ken’s Tango (dark blue) is the EV of the month. Built in Spokane by a company called Comuta-Cars. Even though it is very narrow, the Tango also has a very low center of gravity and two advanced AC motors in it. It’ll do 0-60 in 5 seconds “If you can get the tires to hold to the ground,” Ken joked. This homegrown-Washington car has lots of YouTube documentation of its speed and its sure-footedness in the snow.
The SEVA Super-EV-Advocate Award – This year’s winner is Chuck Benson, Creative tinkerer, efficiency guru, long-time EV advocate and SEVA supporter. Chuck hosted SEVA meetings at his house for many years and served as Treasurer in the past as well.
INDIANA HAS A NEW EV FEE – The state of Indiana is now planning to impose a $150 fee on Electric Vehicles. As we have discussed in the past, we beg to differ, and are of the opinion that such fees should be mileage-based, and not simply an arbitrary number. Ten other states already have EV fees as it is. Washington State is working on a Vehicle Miles Travelled study and people can sign up to be notified of updates and possibly be in a test program.
WELCOME NEW MEMBERS! The membership said hello to SEVEN new people. We welcomed a newcomer who drives a Prius and who is interested in conversion, and another new member who is also interested in conversions, as well as a third member who has been interested in exploring destination charging to promote travel and serving the needs of drivers. A fourth member is interested in getting more EVs into the community. Other new people have recently bought EVs and want to fold in to the EV community.
Chevy Bolt is honored by Motor Trend as Car of the Year, and was named the car of the year at the Detroit Auto Show. Roy reported that “hundreds of them” have arrived at Portland. So far California and Oregon are the only states where the Bolt is being sold. Steve Wosniak who has owned 4 Teslas, was one of the first to get a Chevy Bolt and says its a great car for around town and is really pleased overall.
EV cars and prototypes have been on display at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, as well as autonomous-driving cars. Hyundai showed its IONIQ self-driving EV prototype, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Navya, Ford, Rivian and Faraday are also introducing new production cars and car prototypes.
King County Metro is putting out an order for more than 100 fully electric buses from Proterra! Anyone who has driven behind some smoky old diesel bus is sure to welcome that news.
President-Elect Trump has put Elon Musk on the Strategic and Policy Forum. Musk has noted that Tesla is an American company, creating an American product and supporting many American jobs. This could be some positive news.
The Tesla giga-factory is coming online! Both Panasonic and Tesla are hiring like crazy.
FEATURED SPEAKER – CHAD SCHWITTERS. The ever-popular Chad shared one of his more thorough and detailed reports with the membership. He talked about the incentives programs being applied to EVs. He shared such details as the effectiveness of certain programs, pointing out that “effectiveness” can often be a very difficult thing to wring out of the raw data. He also allowed that not all EV markets are created equal. One thing Chad noticed rang out loud and clear: State incentives work. States with incentives sell 2-4x more EVs than states without.
EVS 30 will be held in Stuttgart in October of this year. More information is available at: http://www.messe-stuttgart.de/
President Johnsen shared some updates on his refrigerated delivery truck project with a whole bunch of photos. The motor is now mounted and the truck will have 3 separate cooling systems.
Meeting adjourned at 9:09
