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Seeking Volunteers for an EV Project at Everett Community College, 10-9 and/or 10-13

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Hello Tesla Owners!

My name is Joe Graber and I am an Engineering Instructor at Everett Community College. One of the classes I teach is an Introduction to Engineering Course where students learn basic engineering analysis through hands-on projects. One of the projects I have developed is based on Electric Vehicles. Students perform calculations to compare the cost and environmental impact of electric versus internal combustion vehicles.

We did this project for the first time last spring and in order to get the students interested and provide hands-on experience I planned a "EV Day". The Nissan dealership brought a couple leafs and Alysashley79 and dsm363 brought their Teslas. The day was a HUGE success!! I really want to thank Alysashley79 and dsm363 for their time.

I can honestly say that I have never seen the students so excited to learn. I also saw many attitudes change. I saw some of my "gear heads" students go from EV haters to EV enthusiasts after a single ride.


I would love to do the same thing this quarter so I am looking for volunteers who would like to show off their cars to group of enthusiastic engineering students. Last time we started off with a 45 minute question and answer session and then gave rides to students 4 at a time.

It is completely up to you whether you would like to simply answer questions and show your car, or take students on short rides (no students will be driving). There will be one or two Leafs there at the same time that students will be able to ride in. So if you are hesitant to let students ride along, don't let that stop you from coming.

We have multiple sections of this course so I am arranging two different days. Here are the times and dates:

Thursday October 9th from 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Monday October 13th from 10:30 AM - 1:30 PM ish

We are located at 2000 Tower Street in Everett. There are blink chargers located on campus.

The 10/13 session is longer because it will actually be for two class sections (10:30 - 11:50 AM and 12:20 - 1:30 PM with 1/2 hour lunch break). Each session will be approximate 25 students. The Thursday session will be a little smaller.

If you can only make one session or even only come for a short time we would still love to have you!


Please let me know if you are interested or if you have any questions and thank you for your support!

You can send me a PM or email me at jgraber at everettcc dot edu.

Thanks!
 
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Hi,

First of all, I love this kind of initiatives, I´m technical trainer, working several years for multinationals like LG Electronics and they invest plenty of budget worldwide, collaborating with colleges, high schools, etc., they use to lend/provide latest products and documentations to permit develop this kind of courses by education entities, due to they know that unfortunately technology is hard to support by local college budgets.
In my personal case, was a success in every representation I did, we receive in return neutral reports and certifications of its performances, great value and happy faces!!!

Let me ask you Joe, have you tried to talk with near Tesla POS about this project, and they request some support from factory in terms of journal demos, technical documentation, factory tours, presentations at your schools, etc.? Maybe you´ll be surpised.

From my experience, first and the most important step about the future and drive of industry is not other that young people under different education stages, and they(companies) know it, even more if is related with sustainable transport, ecologic environment and cutting edge tecnologies of this kind of companies such as TESLA that is in non stop growing.
I´d not hesitate, ;)

Good job Mr. Graber!
 
Hi Luis,

Thanks for your supportive words. I did contact the Tesla Dealer in Seattle last spring when I first started this project. Unfortunately they were not able to attend our EV day at the college. They offered to provide a tour at their show room. I found that planning transportation to Seattle and a tour outside of class time for 70+ students is very difficult. From past projects I have learned that it is very important to include all students (especially those who have jobs and other commitments outside of class) in tours and hands on activities and the only practical way to do that is during class time.

- - - Updated - - -

Breser and Jack and Charlene, we would love to have you! Here is a link showing the chargers on campus: http://www.plugshare.com/?location=13181, They are Level 2 chargers which I think means that they are 240 volts. The price is listed as Blink Plus: $0.39 per kwh, Blink Guest: $0.49 per kwh. We will meet at the charging stations so you can have your car plugged in while the students are looking at it.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Joe
 
Breser and Jack and Charlene, we would love to have you! Here is a link showing the chargers on campus: PlugShare - EV Charging Station Map - Find a place to charge your car!, They are Level 2 chargers which I think means that they are 240 volts. The price is listed as Blink Plus: $0.39 per kwh, Blink Guest: $0.49 per kwh. We will meet at the charging stations so you can have your car plugged in while the students are looking at it.

I'm not particularly worried about charging. I should be able to easily get up to Everett and back home without charging. Unless I need to charge from giving rides I'm not going to want to pay Blink's somewhat high pricing these days.

Yes Level 2 chargers mean around 200V (in the US it ranges from 208V to 240V depending on the way it's installed and the utility), but to really get a sense of how long it'll take to charge you need to know the amperage as well. I can't find the amperage for those charges but I'd bet 30A since they're Blink chargers (possibly downrated to 24A given their recent issues). They have J1772 plugs.

Probably worthwhile to find out this year (probably by looking at what we get when we plug in) and make a note of it for next year.
 
"...I'm not going to want to pay Blink's somewhat high pricing these days."

I have only used Blink metered EVSE twice, I find charging $0.39/kWh to be reasonable. Remember there are costs beyond electricity. Amortization of the unit and its installation costs, maintenance, customer service (yes they answer the phones even at mid-night on a Saturday), split to the property owner and the minor cost of electricity. I would really like Blink to get into the haL2 business as 208/240V30A is basically about 20 miles of range per hour of charge.
 
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"...I'm not going to want to pay Blink's somewhat high pricing these days."

I have only used Blink metered EVSE twice, I find charging $0.39/kWh to be reasonable. Remember there are costs beyond electricity. Amortization of the unit and its installation costs, maintenance, customer service (yes they answer the phones even at mid-night on a Saturday), split to the property owner and the minor cost of electricity. I would really like Blink to get into the haL2 business as 208/240V30A is basically about 20 miles of range per hour of charge.

my dads company does all the installation and upkeep of the blink network you'd be SHOCKED to know how much to know what their true "installation" costs are. I cannot divulge this information because it's proprietary to his company (it's a local pax nw company at least) but blink it's ridiculous. I've not used them just for this reason. If I was in a road trip and was forced to because there was no other choice yes I would but I find the costs to be exhorbitant beyond what they should be charging.
 
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I have only used Blink metered EVSE twice, I find charging $0.39/kWh to be reasonable. Remember there are costs beyond electricity. Amortization of the unit and its installation costs, maintenance, customer service (yes they answer the phones even at mid-night on a Saturday), split to the property owner and the minor cost of electricity. I would really like Blink to get into the haL2 business as 208/240V30A is basically about 20 miles of range per hour of charge.

I understand they have costs beyond the electricity and that's why I said somewhat high prices.
 
Thank you for the responses and support! This is shaping up to be a great event.

On Thursday (10/9) JackA will be joining us with a "maybe" from ThortsMD. We will meet at 4 pm at the Blink Chargers
On Monday (10/13) Alysashley79 and psingram will be joining us. We will meet at 10:30 am at the Blink Chargers

breser, are you still interested? which day?

Both days we also have a 2015 Leaf coming from Nissan of Everett and the EvCC Engineering Club will be displaying their student built electric car (and possibly providing pizza on Monday).

The Blink Chargers are located in Parking Lot F. Here is a campus map: EvCC Campus Map | Everett Community College

I plan to continue this project, so if you were interested but not able to attend this time, I will be sending out other announcements in future quarters.

Thank you again for your support of Engineering Education. Please let me know if you have any questions.
 
breser, sounds great, I will see you tomorrow.

psingram - excellent point. I will contact facilities as see if there is any covered parking area that we could use. If there isn't any and it ends up raining heavily, we could meet in the classroom and let students ask questions. We could then head outside in small groups for rides. For now, I am hoping for decent weather.
 
We had our first EV day of the quarter yesterday and it was Amazing! We had three teslas join us; breser, ThortsMD, and JackA, as well as two Leafs and the student built electric car. The students absolutely loved it, in fact, I don't think they wanted to leave.

I would like to thank breser, ThortsMD, and JackA for their time, it really makes a huge difference for the students and their excitement to learn.

We have another event planned for Monday and I am looking forward to psingram joining us and breser returning as well.
I have decided to change the location of the event due to the possibility of rain. Instead of meeting at the chargers we are going to park the cars under cover in an area more central to campus. This will also attract more interested students since we will be right next to the Student Union Building.

psingram and breser (and anyone else still interested) - Please meet me at the NorthEast corner of Parking Lot B at 10:30 am. You will see a bunch of Handicapped spots and I will be there at 10:30 to help direct you where to Park. The event will be held on the patio of Grey Wolf Hall (building 7 on the map). It is designed for vehicles and there are no curbs or bumps to worry about.

Here is a map of campus: http://www.everettcc.edu/files/admi...rvices/security/parking/parking-map-print.pdf

Please reply to this post or send me an email so that I know you received this message.

Thanks for your support!

Joe
[email protected]