EVents 2005 02 05

From SanFranciscoEVA

The Minutes of past SFEVA Chapter Meetings!

SFEVA MINUTES February 5, 2005

Ron Gremban of the Prius+ Project shows off the car. Members test-drive the Prius+ (with a Sparrow in the background).

A dozen people turned out for the SFEVA meeting and our guest speakers from the Prius Plus Project of CalCars.

Members voted to change the chapter's name to the San Francisco Electric Vehicle Association, to be more inclusive of electric scooters, bicycles, motorcycles, buses, etc. Six other U.S. chapters of the EAA (and two Canadian groups) use "vehicle" in their names instead of "auto", so we're in good company. We'll be changing the web site URL, the listserve address, the name on the bank account, etc. in the near future to reflect SFEVA instead of SFEAA.

Marc and Sherry gave updates on the chapter budget, the successful vigil in January to save Ford RangerEV trucks, and productive meetings with the SF Environmental Dept., the Bay Area Air Quality Management Board, and the SF Green Party. They announced the Feb. 19 EAA national meeting and the chapters meeting on April 1-3.

The architect of the new 800-space parking garage being built for DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park finally returned Sherry's calls and said they planned to install wiring for EV chargers but not the chargers or signs, because there's no demand right now for EV charging. Sherry tried to convince him otherwise. They agreed that the SFEVA should send him a letter with our positions, and in a few months when the garage owners start interviewing garage managers, they'll bring us into the process to decide on EV charging. In the meantime we might also contact City officials to generate support for including charging in the new garage.

All of this led to discussions about how we'd like to see greater cooperation and strategizing among the Bay Area EAA chapters. We'd like to see a common listserve for Bay Area chapters so that we can keep abreast of each other's activities. We'd like to have some mechanism for regular strategizing together, for example around the meeting we had with the Bay Area Air Quality Management Board, which affects us all. It would be helpful if other Bay Area chapters (or, better yet, the EAA national) could ask state representatives to get statistics from the DMV that break down the numbers of registered EVs and NEVs by county. (We have them for SF County.) All of these would be immensely helpful in the lobbying work that we do.

Marc reported seeing 110V outlets the EV charging sites in the Presidio.

Felix Kramer of Prius+ informed us of a major hearing by the Calif. PUC on global warming and response strategies, on Feb. 23 in San Francisco.

Felix and Ron Gremban described the Prius+ Project, gave us a status report, showed us a prototype car, and took us for rides. Many thanks to them for a very informative talk. Here are a few highlights and tidbits:

• National security groups (like the Institute for Analysis of Global Security) and environmental groups (like the Natural Resources Defense Council) have formed an unusual alliance to support plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).
• Some enthusiasts have suggested that we call them gas-optional hybrid electric vehicles (GO-HEV) to work around the fact that car companies have hyped hybrids by saying, "You don't have to plug it in!" And because GO-HEV is a cool acronym.
• Daimler Chrysler will introduce three GO-HEV 15-passenger vans called Sprinters this spring. An employee of Austin Energy is trying to organize public utilities to order a joint buy of GO-HEVs to jumpstart the industry.
• CalCars and the Prius+ Project focus on technical development and advocacy. They have partnered with a private company in Southern California (Energy CS) that probably would be the first to do the actual conversions of Prius HEVs to GO-HEVs. Prius+ has tested lead acid batteries and next will test NiMH. Energy CS is testing Valence lithium batteries. They hope that by the end of this year they will have an affordable conversion kit available not for sale to individuals, but as a drop-off conversion order. Someone would drive a Prius to their site, drop off the car, and pick it up the next day or so converted to a GO-HEV. Once this works, there's no reason that other HEVs couldn't be converted to GO-HEVs, since most use the same Toyota technology.

For more on Prius+, see http://www.calcars.org

Part of the goal is to prod automakers to introduce their own GO-HEVs. Felix speculated that Hyundai may be the first to do so. The company has about 90 pure EV Santa Fe SUVs in Hawaii. They have a big presence in So. Calif., where the Prius+ conversions will first become available.

We all brainstormed on the need for the EAA and CalCars and like-minded groups to educate some of the major environmental organizations and build them into allies in all this. It also would be immensely helpful if the EAA, Prius+ and perhaps one or two other EV-related organizations could jointly hire a staff person to provide rapid media response and other assistance in our efforts.

The next SFEVA meeting will be on Saturday, March 5, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Site to be determined. For more information, see http://www.sfeva.org.