From SanFranciscoEVA

The Minutes of past SFEVA Chapter Meetings!

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SFEVA MINUTES March 5, 2005

Six of us met at Marc’s house and discussed the following.

APRIL MEETING CANCELED – Sherry and Marc will both be in Austin for the EAA all-chapters meeting that weekend. The next chapter meeting will be Saturday, May 7. Watch the web site for location:

Earth Day events – If you hear of one in April that we could piggyback on to get EVs into the public eye, let us know.

EV1 vigil update -- Marc made postcards for people to sign and send to GM; if you want some, let him know. Warren Winovich, visiting from the Silicon Valley EAA, suggested that the vigilers ask GM to release the EV1 plans, so that others could build from them. Sherry suggested that we might want to bring Chelsea Sexton or one of the other vigilers to the Bay Area for a public presentation that might generate some media attention.

Lending library – Got EV-related items that you’d be willing to lend to SFEVA members? Tell us the item and how to contact you. Here's what we’re starting with:

• simple electrical outlet tester (Sherry)
• voltmeter (Sherry)
• battery strap, for easy lifting of batteries (Sherry)
• Avcon to small paddle converter box, for road trips (Marc)

Sherry has ordered business cards with SFEVA info on it. Once they arrive, all are invited to take some and put them under the windshield wiper of any EV or Prius that you come across in SF. (Most Prius drivers think they have electric cars…) Marc suggested that we make bumper stickers with our chapter name and url on them. Marc also suggested that we consider making signs to post at the front of garages that have EV charging, saying something like “Electric Vehicles Charged Here” and “www.sfeva.org” on them.

Since the chairman of the Calif. Public Utilities Commission publicly ridiculed EVs recently, we discussed inviting him (he's local) and other local PUC members and politicians to take a ride in an EV. We’ll need to hone our talking points and create a concise packet of literature for them, then make a list of invitees. These will also come in handy if we end up chauffeuring U.N. dignitaries for World Environment Day in SF in June.

We talked about a lot of miscellaneous things, like debating whether the E7 or E9 time-of-use electricity rates are best for EV drivers who put solar PV panels on their homes. We hope to crunch some numbers and put the results on our web site eventually.

Warren suggested that we get high school students involved in an “Electrathon” as a way to get young drivers interested in EVs. We’ll talk more about outreach to students and the community at a future meeting.

Lastly, we talked about creating an issue statement to offer to political parties to include in their platforms. All agreed with Marc's suggestion that it be brief, like four sentences leading from the general concept that electric transport is beneficial to more specific suggestions. Look for a draft on the listserv soon.