SEVA Meeting Minutes – May 2016
SEVA Meeting Minutes: May 10, 2016, 7:30 Called to order. Officers introduced. 40 persons in attendance.
EV of the Month: Deb gave her presentation “From Zenn to Now,” a lovely presentation, told in verse. We’ll see if we can get a copy of it for those of you who missed the original.
Pete Dempster from BMW gave a presentation about a new ride-share program called ReachNow, which has made its North American premiere in Seattle. This program is attracting younger drivers, and is reaching across to men as well as women. Many people who would otherwise not be experiencing what it is like to be in an EV now have access to a BMW i3.
It is car show season! President Stephen gave a slide show about his trip to the carbon fiber factory in Moses Lake and the WSDOT meeting that he, Phil, Deb and some other members attended. Can’t talk too much about the factory (some aspects of it are hush-hush) and no photos allowed, but some good information about growing the EV charging infrastructure.
Bellevue College Earth Day show was a big success, with lots of visibility for electric vehicles. Whidbey Island had a Green Transportation show, and SEVA had its spring EV show at XXX Root Beer (44 EVs on display, representing more than 1,300,000 oil-free miles driven). You can, incidentally, sign up for the fall EV show at XXX now … the website is up.
Sunday May 22nd RE*FUEL races at Laguna Seca near sunny Monterey California 8am to 5:30pm (registration is open but likely already be full for racing cars however go-carts may still have availability) Plenty of room for spectators this is THE premier EV road racing event in the country and Tesla brings out 2 mobile Superchargers just for the EVent and Nissan usually brings a CHAdeMO station! Teslas, Rav4EVs, Chevy sparks and all sorts of conversions including an AC cobra, a Ferrari and various Porsches and VWs will all compete for trophies. There are even motorcycles and go-karts racing. See President Stephen if you are interested in going along to Laguna Seca with him.
FENDERS ON FRONT STREET – is June 19 in Issaquah. While this is not a SEVA-sanctioned event, it is a good time to look at some beautiful cars, and bring your own! Speaking of which …
GREENWOOD CAR SHOW! – This is one of SEVA’s big events. Mark Schiller is running this show, so see him if you would like to get your car signed up for the show.
SOLARFEST and RENTON RIVER DAYS – Two back-to-back events (July 23 and 24). Mark your calendars and bring your cars!
“SHOCK AND AWE” IS BUILT!! – Shock and Awe – the brushless wonder out of Bothell High School – is now a finished car, and seeking to be one of the fastest and most reliable racing machines! It made a total of four runs last Friday at the HighSchool drags and it was faster than all of the other gas vehicles at the track that day except for one rail dragster! The results were as follows:
Run 1: at 25% torque – 17.05 at 78.54 (driver lifted off pedal before end of track)
Run 2: at 40% torque – 12.08 at 121.08mph (car a bit skittish near shift point)
Run 3: at 58% torque – 11.66 at 130.72mph (car again wagged the rear end near shift)
Run 4: at 58% torque – 11.45 at 132.14mph (car ran straight as an arrow but still wasn’t getting proper weight transfer to the rear wheels, adjustments will be made)
Jeff Finn shared his experiences with the membership regarding Proterra buses (saw one actually running … not a test vehicle, but a numbered, scheduled bus). As well as the work that is being done to create charging on highway loops that will help promote “EV tourism.”
In lieu of the usual raffle we passed the hat around for our longtime members Jeff and Sandy Smith because their house burned to the ground. Thanks to our generous members over $600 was raised at the meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 9:20.