From SanFranciscoEVA

June 7, 2008 meeting at Luscious Garage in San Francisco

Mark Albers was elected as interim secretary.

Chapter president, Dale Miller, announced that 7th Grade class from Brandeis Hillel Day School of San Francisco donated $1,500 dollars to the SFEVA chapter after doing a fundraiser.

Dale Miller announced that he is organizing an electric car show at the Marin County Fair, which is striving to be the Greenest Fair on Earth. Volunteers are needed to represent the SFEVA during the fair. Volunteers will ideally spend a half-day at the SFEVA table to promote awareness of electric vehicles. Martin Eberhard, the former CEO of Tesla will be speaking on Thursday at the fair with a reception following. While it is a ticketed event, the SFEVA has a few tickets for those that are interested in attending the event. The membership agreed that we would not have a regular meeting in July since the date falls on the 4th of July weekend and overlaps with the Marin County Fair. Anyone wishing to check out the SFEVA can visit the Marin County Fair or join us in August.

The members discussed whether the SFEVA should continue to participate in the San Francisco Green Festival. This year the festival will be held from November 14th to the 16th. It was suggested that we request that the transportation related exhibitors at the Green Festival be organized into a common location to create a transportation neighborhood at the festival. There are plans to discuss this concept with the festival organizers. It was also suggested that we request to have someone speak about electric vehicles as part of the seminars at the festival.

Dale Miller announced that Environmental Motors (http://www.environmentalmotors.com) of Glendale, California, has developed a petition to the federal government to create a Medium Speed Vehicle classification for electric vehicles. This petition aims to create a legal classification allowing certain electric vehicles to be driven at speeds up to 35mph. Marc Geller point out that this concept has been controversial with the Electric Auto Association in the past and that there are advantages and disadvantages to the idea. Information about the proposal will be circulated on the news group and we can discuss it at a future meeting.

Dale Miller announced that there were press reports that Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco mayor, is exploring the possibility of working with Project Better Place. Project Better Place (http://www.projectbetterplace.com) is a company / initiative lead by Shai Agassi to manufacture replacement batteries for electric cars. With this business model, a driver would simply drive through an automated battery changing system when they have drained the battery of its charge and get a replacement battery that is fully charged. At this point in time, Project Better Place has partnered with the state of Israel to provide this service in Israel and with Renault to interface this battery changing system with their cars.

Future Meeting Topics:

• In August, we will focus on how to convert an existing vehicle to an electric vehicle. If you have any suggestions or requests with regard to the topics that will be covered during this discussion, please contact SFEVA at info2008(at)sfeva(dot)org.

• At some point in the future, we will likely have a meeting focused on Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technology and/or Smart charging.
• André Angelantoni announced the San Francisco Peak Oil Taskforce is planning a series of on-line town hall meetings to discuss peak oil issues with the public.

The dates and times of the meeting will be announced in the near future on their website, http://postpeakliving.com/ The meetings will be held sometime in August and will focus on the impact of peak oil on the city of San Francisco.

Mark J. Albers, Secretary