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National Plug-In Day is October 16 in the U.S. Please join us!

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ChadS

Last tank of gas: March 2009
Jul 16, 2009
3,559
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Redmond, WA
On Sunday, October 16, Plug In America, Electric Auto Association and Sierra Club are celebrating National Plug In Day around the country. See more details and a list of participating cities at http://www.pluginamerica.org/pluginday. A few of the relevant details are excerpted below:

Plug In Day is for consumer outreach; partly through the events, but more through media attention. It is hard to believe for those of us on this forum, but most Americans have never seen an EV—yet they don't like them, because their concept of EVs is based on golf carts. Many still don’t realize they are for sale! Unlike many outreach events where an EV or two is sufficient to show off and answer questions, this event is about the numbers. We need as many highway-legal plug-in drivers as we can get in front of the media to show that EVs are available and viable.

In Santa Monica, CA we are planning an EV parade. We invite highway capable plug in vehicles in the area to join us as we roll from the Civic Center down Main Street at 10am. Vehicle staging is from 8am to 9:15am, and there will be a press conference at 9:30am. Mingle with EV drivers and show off your car while showing the world plug ins are here! Please email Alexandra to join the Santa Monica parade: alexandra at pluginamerica dotorg.

For drivers in the Orange County, CA area, please contact Linda Nicholes for the Tailgate without Tailpipes Meet-up and Drive-away 1-3 pm at the Orange Public Library parking lot: linda at pluginamerica dotorg.

Drivers in the Seattle, WA area please contact chad at pluginamerica dotorg. We will have a meet-up and car show at Luther Burbank park on Mercer Island from noon until 3:00.

In the New York area, contact nathan at purpose dotcom.

Watch video of the 2009 Parade here, and see pictures here.
 
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New details on NYC Plug-in Day

There's a whole website with details on New York's event for National Plug-in Day! Join us on beautiful Pier 54 for 56,000 square feet of electric car celebration right in the heart of Manhattan. It's a terrific opportunity to connect with other owners and experts and there'll be fun activities for the public.

If you're an EV owner in the Northeast or you just know someone in the area who'd like to join, visit:

http://www.nycplugin.org/
eventlogo.png
 
This is a great opportunity to get EVs out in force, in a way that's hard to ignore, coordinated across the country to get some real media attention. It should also be a quite a party! I always enjoy getting together with other EV owners and look forward to the biggest event I've ever attended, uniting the Tesla, LEAF, Volt, and DIY EV communities.

Cathy and I will be at the Seattle event with our Roadster and RAV4-EV.
 
>>On Sunday, October 16, Plug In America, Electric Auto Association and Sierra Club are celebrating National Plug In Day around the country.
Plug In Day is for consumer outreach; partly through the events, but more through media attention. <<

Just as they are doing this - a week later in Toronto, Ontario, we are holding - EV Fest, Toronto's PRemeire Electric Vehicle Fall Festival - it is our second event under the EV Fest Banner - EV Fest - Home and hopefully not the last! You are also welcome to check this ouot and consider Exhibiting a personal Ev if you like here as well as just coming and checking it out! Robert
 
Last call for members attending the NYC event; should be a good one; at the very minimum it's an EV meet up with at least five people from here attending as far as I know.

If you can make it to Pier 54 on Sunday for an 11am start through to a 4pm finish, please contact Nate at [email protected] asap to check your car in for the event.

More details at http://www.nycplugin.org/

 
We're up to 21 cities!

  • Austin, TX
  • Concord, NH
  • Dallas, TX
  • Davis, CA
  • Denver, CO
  • Detroit, MI
  • Honolulu, HI
  • Kissimmee, FL
  • Knoxville, TN
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Santa Monica, CA
  • New York City, NY
  • Orange County, CA
  • Phoenix, AZ
  • Portland, OR
  • San Francisco, CA
  • San Diego, CA
  • Santa Cruz, CA
  • Seattle, WA
  • Tucson, AZ
  • Washington DC
Go to the Plug In America page and follow the link to your nearest city to get specific event details.
 
Get your friends to be spectators!




Celebrate Your EV This Sunday at the First Ever National Plug-In Day for Electric Vehicles!

by Laura K. Cowan, 10/11/11
filed under: automotive, Green Transportation, News



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This Sunday, drivers in over 20 cities nationwide will celebrate the benefits of electric vehicles by staging the largest electric vehicle parade ever and hosting “tailpipe-free” tailgate parties and lectures. It’s called National Plug-in Day, and it’s being organized by Plug In America, the Sierra Club, and the Electric Auto Association. New plug-in vehicles by Tesla, GM, Nissan, SMART, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Coda, Ford, and others will be on-hand for ride-and-drives so that the public can test electric vehicles that have come to market since Plug In America’s smaller 2008 and 2009 EV rallies, pictured here.



 
I went to the Plug-in event on Mercer Island outside Seattle today. Very cool! Lots of Roadsters and Leafs in attendance, a couple of Volts and a few conversions.

Two of the conversions were based on 198x Pontiac Fieros. One was a lead acid battery model and the other was Li-Ion. The Li-Ion had a range of over 100 miles and cost around $30k for the parts. The fellow who owned it said that it more than paid for itself, not only in terms of fuel savings, but also as a feature on his son's resume. His son was the main builder (dad was primarily the wallet and assistant) who is now working at Tesla in California. How cool is that?!

I also got to meet the couple who live near me with a beautiful black Signature edition Roadster. #34 I believe. They just bought it in July with very low mileage because it had been owned by a collector and stored all this time. I remember seeing that car and thought about buying it myself at the time. She uses it for her commute, but they have three children and they're already signed up for a Model S to replace a 10 year old Audi.

There were representatives there from the Electric Highway Project. It looks like WA state will have theirs completed by the end of the year! Cool! Each station will have a DC fast charger and a Level 2 charger. Guess I'll find out later how the S will be able to connect to it.

For the first time, I got to hear the "tron" sound that the Leaf makes. It was very low volume and kind of sounds like the Jetsons sound. So if the Model S sounds like that, and I absolutely couldn't disable it, I could easily live with it. It's not nearly as obnoxious as the sound in that video with the guy nearly getting run over in the crosswalk.

Anyway, it was a fun time and I got to talk with some cool people.
 
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In Santa Monica we had 168 cars. An amazing turnout of mostly Leafs, a few Volts, some conversions & of course the faithful from SoCal GreenSpeed Teslas
(VFX, DrComputer, RLJ327, Beakmeister & myself). One other Tesla was "Charlie" that we met, but there may have been more towards the front of the line whom we didn't get to.
Many of the Leaf owners came up to us to 'thank us' for their car or for a little recent EV history lesson. :rolleyes:
We had a great time before we departed down the route with a few speeches and then an approximate 3 mile parade down Main Street which was the quietest I've ever attended.
Many on lookers asking questions as we rolled by. Kids, dogs, apple pie, it was all there (but nobody was planking)! :redface:
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