SEVA Meeting Minutes – June 2016

SEVA Meeting Minutes:  June 6 2016, –Called to order. Officers introduced. 44 persons in attendance.

NEW PEOPLE – We are pleased to welcome Darren (Mr. Electric Bicycle!), Michael (Graphic Designer who’s made some super cool EV shirts!  www.evince.com ) John (first had an EV in 1992), William (interested in fuel-efficient vehicles and electric bikes) David (interested in the group) and Steve (curious about an EV conversion) who are joining us for the very first time.

EV of the MONTH – is Billy’s 2017 Volt, leased from Bill Pierre Chevrolet.  Battery has increased to 53 miles of range (43 – 56  miles “real world” experience), new styling, better audio system.  Charger has improved to 3.6 kWh. $35,000 MSRP.  Billy was happy with the lease terms he was able to come to with the dealership. Come out into the EV lot to see it!

GREENWOOD CAR SHOW – June 25th.  This is the “Super Bowl” of the car show season.  Hopefully everyone has filled out their car show applications, although Mark Schiller was on hand to take last-minute applications.  SEVA has 29 vehicles (and counting) ready to display, and SEVA’s section will be at the Walgreen’s parking lot, as usual.  If you are showing a car, please be in place by 8:00am.  After party will be at the Lough residence.  Pre-show fun starts at Woodland Park at 6:30am for coffee, donuts, and socializing. Wayland will be there and if anyone else is bringing a trailer, there is room in the parking lot here and we can all caravan our EVs up to the Walgreens lot.

FENDERS ON FRONT STREET – This  is Father’s Day on Front Street in Issaquah.  One of the region’s biggest car shows.  Whether you are showing or looking, be there.

PIKES PEAK INTERNATIONAL HILL CLIMB June 26th– Will the Electric Vehicles dominate this year?

EMERALD CITY JOULES III – July 20th.  Bring your EV out to bracket race against other EVs of all types or kick gas by challenging a gas burner to a drag race! Gates open at 4pm and there’s plenty of charging at the track for this Wednesday evening event.

SOLARFEST – Saturday, July 23rd.  A big, big event at Shoreline Community College.  And it’s free so please bring out your EV!

RENTON RIVER DAYS – July 24th.  Treasurer Mark Yormark wanted to remind everyone of this event.  It is on SEVA’s calendar (right after SolarFest), and this presents a good opportunity to improve the visibility of EVs in the area. There will be 30A public charging available as well as a chance to win a $100 IKEA gift card!

SHOCK AND AWE BOTHELL HIGH SCHOOL’S 800V DRAG RACER – Instructor (and car driver) Pat McCue shared his experiences with sending “Shock and Awe” to the drag strip. The car has made it out to the track for two events now and about 10 runs. It has worked its way down from a 12 second time, through the elevens, to 10 seconds and finally a staggering 9.5 second pass at over 150 MPH! Pat shared some amazing videos of the car including this one from our Canadian NEDRA friend Casey Mynott: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L53JTDnmj_w
Congratulations to Mr. McCue and his students on this fantastic achievement.

LOOKING “FOB”-ULOUS – The membership shared some strategies for dealing with weak or disabled key fobs on newer electric vehicles.  Buying a new key fob is expensive and it’s good to keep spare batteries on hand.

Don Baer recommended Gaurdian Locks in Tacoma who can re-key a new Nissan LEAF Keyfob for over $100 less than what the dealer was going to charge him. Brian Henderson let people know that even if the LEAF key fob battery dies, you can pull the metal key out and then open the door and once inside, you can place the key fob right up to the “start” button on the Nissan LEAF in order to start the car. Grace Reamer mentioned that with the Tesla Model S, you can also place it’s key fob up at the base of the windshield in order to unlock the car, and then in the cup holder area of the center console in order to start the car if your Model S key fob battery goes bad.

SURVEY – UW researchers have distributed a survey about charging habits and strategies. Don MacKenzie and his students have been developing a new survey, which focuses not only on charging choices, but on choices about whether to use an EV or a conventional vehicle for a planned day of travel. They will use the resulting data to better predict electricity demand profiles from EV charging and to inform the design of public charging infrastructure. As a thank you, they will be entering all survey respondents in a drawing for a choice of an Apple iPad or a Microsoft Surface tablet (a $499 value).

The survey should take 10-20 minutes and can be found here: http://evchargingsurvey.com/

Meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm.