SEVA Meeting Minutes – August 2024
Seattle Electric Vehicle Association
August 13, 2024 meeting minutes
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The August 13, 2024 membership meeting of the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association took place at the Rivian Showroom meeting space, 4601 26th Ave NE, in University Village, Seattle.
Prior to the meeting, numerous members met on the upper level of the garage across the street to show and discuss electric vehicles. The weather was great.
At 7:06 pm, President Jay Donnaway called the meeting to order.
First time visitors included; one person who had been reviewing consumer reports and came to learn more about EVs, a new EV owner and a person with an electrified ’83 RX7.
One member offered two Azure Dynamics AC24 Motors for sale. Another offered an Electrostatic Paint Booth, free tonight only. The items now have new homes.
The first presentation was from Britton Shepard of Underdog EV.
Britton has many years of experience working at the intersection of public and private spaces as a result of his Landscape Design-Build business. Currently, many EV owners in Seattle lack off-street parking, making charging at home difficult. Underdog EV offers installation of curbside Level 2 EV charging, including permitting and best practices. The installation includes a charger on a steel bollard curbside with conduit to the house. This helps eliminate charging cords passing over the sidewalk. The Seattle City Light Curbside Charging Program applies to both current EV owners and those who plan to lease or buy an EV. Don’t let charging concerns stop you from getting an EV!
Discussion included the challenge of preserving one’s parking spot, installation cost (pricing is on the web site), possible cord theft and the limited number of public installations (so far) by the City of Seattle creating the need for a more personal solution.
Check out Underdogev.com for more information!
The nights second presentation was from Julien Thorn of ZEV Co-Op.
ZEV Co-Op is a nonprofit serving Washington and Oregon targeting under served populations with Zero Emission vehicle sharing. Rates vary depending on membership status with subsidies for income qualified persons. Rates range from $5 to $16 per hour or $40 to $128 per day. Vehicles are picked up and returned to a specific location that has charging facilities. Generally, these locations are near mass transit or community hub locations where their partners have parking space. Vehicles include Chevy Bolt, Ford pickup, Rivian and a Ram Promaster ADA van with two wheel chair capacity. The program is funded with state and federal grants and currently has 9 vehicles at 7 sites. The intent is become profitable and to scale to 50 vehicles by the end of 2024, with an additional 8 vehicles and 3 sites coming soon. By the end of 2025 they hope to have 250 vehicles in the system. New users get a 20 minute Zoom orientation. Check out zev.coop!
Stephen Johnson reported on battery recycling.
Lead acid batteries, which EV builders used 20 years ago, are easy to recycle. Lithium is hard. J.B. Straubel, former Tesla, formed Redwood Materials to recycle lithium batteries and other materials. Unfortunately, it has become cheaper to mine lithium (good) making recycling of lithium batteries less profitable (bad). Small batteries can often be recycled at office supply and building material stores. Larger batteries (E-Bike and larger) have become very difficult to recycle. After numerous calls, Stephen found 1Green Planet in Renton and was able to recycle, for free, over 1,000 pounds of batteries that he had collected over the years. 1greenplanet.com
Jay shared that we should all recycle our large lithium batteries NOW and that 1GreenPlanet is part of the state mandated “recycling fee” program. However, they might not keep taking large batteries forever as there was a recent fire in Tachoma that was linked to lithium batteries. There is a push in Olympia (by some car companies) to only allow “licensed technicians” to handle automotive size batteries. For reference, cobalt recycling has also become less profitable. Mined cobalt was $20,000 per ton and has dropped to $4,000 per ton.
VP Rob shared that this is our last time in this meeting space, as Rivian will be closing this location. We thank Rivian for their hospitality and for the use of their space and chairs. The board is open to suggestions for future meeting locations.
The September meeting will be at the Tesla Studio, here in University Village. Due to storage space limitations, we will each need to bring our own chairs. If many of us could plan bring two, we should have enough chairs for everyone, including visitors.
Grace gave a legislative update.
The EV Coordination Council is working on a 5-10 year framework.
The Department of Commerce 2 year summary is open for comments.
Other items and details are discussed in her June 30 email to the group.
Comments were due Friday, Aug 16.
Rollie and Mark discussed upcoming events.
Electrify Expo, September 14
Ride & Drive in Bainbridge Sept 14
University of Washington Sept 14, 15
Steilacoom Car Show Aug 25
The meeting adjourned at 8:30.
By Eric Eskilson, SEVA Secretary
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Zoom/YouTube Meeting Recording(s):
: Did Not Stream Meeting