Well, so much for the thunderstorms.
Maybe a few spots of rain, but there were even periods of sun. I even got a sunburn, which seemed ridiculous given the general cloudiness.
Plenty of cars on show. The 3 registered Tesla owners (2 Maine registered, 1 Mass) turned up, 1 there nice and early and 2 came later.
One more Tesla came later, but he was just visiting, a board member of Plug-in America on vacation, from Seattle! Another couple from Virginia, I believe, who own a Tesla were there, but in his words "ICEd it up from Logan" due to the current lack of Supercharging.
Had some good conversations (at least from my point of view
). With the organiser Marc (there with his current Leaf), the owner of the "Other Plug-in Vehicle" (a Solectria Force owner who upgraded the batteries to Thundersky LiFePO), and a couple of Tesla owners.
The owner from Mass is magplate on TMC. He's only posted a couple of times, but he told me he'd been doing some tracking of costs in a spreadsheet and might post or blog the information here.
One of the Tesla owners from Maine was Tim Soley, the developer who owns the Fore St garage in Portland, which has a high amp charger. He clearly loves his P85. He only has it because he got impatient waiting for the X.
Dealers were there to give test drives. (Due to blue laws dealers can't sell on Sundays). My wife (whom I'd bribed with dinner and freedom to go mall shopping after test drives) test drove a Leaf and Smart ED. My wife found the Smart ED underpowered, and the Leaf "a bit Prius". If we didn't have a Volt she might have been more impressed by the Leaf, but it didn't offer anything new on the short test drive loop. I rode in the Leaf but didn't drive, since I'm too focused on efficiency and electrification to care much about performance or handling.
Test drives were also available in a Volt, Mercedes B Class EV, Plug-in Prius, and BMW i3. I really didn't look closely at the i3 or B Class (despite it being the first time I'd see one), simply because I have no interest in them. Similarly, the PiP held no interest.
There seemed to be a good mix of enthusiasts and people new to the ideas of EV, judging from some of the questions I heard asked.
If there was one criticism of the event, it would be that test drives could have been better organized. There seemed to be limited staff from the dealers, and they were often occupied or busy with the test drives, so it would have been good to have a volunteer finding the people interested in test drives and organizing them so they weren't just waiting around.
The organizer of the event, Marc, has said that he won't be running it next year.