Today we met at the Florida Institute of Technology Panther Dining Hall. Members used both the old charging station under the parking garage and the new charging station at the Harris Student Design Center while we ate lunch and talked about upcoming meetings and all things EV. Here are the notes from the meeting:

Upcoming events:

EV Presentation at Advent Lutheran Church
David Jahn, one of our Leaf driving members is giving an electric vehicle presentation to the men’s group at the Advent Lutheran Church 7550 N Wickham Rd on Saturday, June 18 from 9-10:30 am. He wants us to bring as many different EV models as we can to be a part of the show n tell portion of the presentation. Let me know if you can make it to this event. Look for the calendar entry so you can click Yes, No or Maybe to RSVP as showing your vehicle and this will add it to your calendar.

EV Presentation at Marine Resources Council Lagoon House
We were invited to give a presentation on EVs at the Lagoon House on Thursday July 7 from 10 am – 12 pm. It is in the middle of a work day so we don’t expect too many people will be able to make it but if you can it will help show them just how many different options there are out there. Again, watch for the calendar entry for this event so you can click Yes, No, or Maybe to RSVP.

Other Notes:

We took a vote and was nearly unanimous that FPL is not invited to National Drive Electric Week in September unless they revoke their support for the anti-solar initiative they are pushing. This shouldn’t be an issue as we are planning to take a different approach to NDEW this year with a “tailgate” festival that’s more for showing our force, family fun, and really getting people to talk to the drivers and owners of EVs and showing off our cars. Brenna is working on planning that event while wrapping up her MPA degree at Florida Tech, currently in her third to last class!

More information on the solar power issues:
http://www.flsolarchoice.org/
http://www.flsolarchoice.org/get-the-facts-on-4/
And here’s more information about the other initiative that’s made to sound like it’s in our best interest but actually in the utilities’ and shareholders’ best interest:
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/09/12940/koch-brothers-backing-misleading-anti-solar-campaign-florida
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20160408/OPINION01/160409761
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article27352444.html

One of our members was asking for more information about the Workplace Charging Challenge to give info to the bosses at their workplace so they will be encouraged to install charging stations for employees.
Here is the official Department of Energy website chock full of the info needed:
http://energy.gov/eere/vehicles/ev-everywhere-workplace-charging-challenge

We had special guests that brought a book and some 3D printed models of the super efficient Acabion car and bounced the idea off of our group. More information about this car can be found in this review from gizmag: http://www.gizmag.com/acabion-da-vinci/33604/

We also added a new member that drives a 100% electric Zero S motorcycle.  That’s our first electric motorcycle in the group! More information on the Zero S and their other electric motorcycles can be found on their website here: http://www.zeromotorcycles.com.  Here’s what a Zero S looks like:

Here are some photos we took showing how our group is growing so big that we now span multiple tables!