Tag Archives: Melbourne FL

Solar Panels and EVs – a Money Saving Combination

July 4, 2017 Eric Lin

I had solar panels installed on my house early last year. My solar panels generated 73% of my power usage and saved me over $1000. We’re now about halfway through this year and so far I’m 84% solar. Last week I had a few more panels installed, which should bring me close to generating 100% of my power usage. The price of the solar panels should break even with the amount I save in electricity in about 7 years.

Another benefit of this is my Tesla now runs primarily on free solar power. I don’t have to worry about gas prices anymore. Even if I didn’t have solar panels, the electricity to power my car costs a fraction of what it costs to fill up a gas tank. It would cost me less than $10 in electricity from FPL to fill up my ‘tank.’ To put another way, the cost of a single fill-up on a 20-gallon gas tank right now would pay for a month of driving on my electric car.

The Sierra Club is working to get cities around the world pledge to switch city operations to 100% renewable energy by 2035. It’s called the Ready for 100 pledge and there is a petition to get the City of Melbourne to join in. As part of the pledge, a board would be formed to formulate a plan for how to achieve the 100% goal. This would likely include a mix of installing solar panels and switching to electric vehicles. Switching to renewables would save the city money and save taxpayers money. It just makes financial sense.

There’s also a related petition to the mayors of all Brevard County cities. Cities contribute about 70% of all energy-related emissions. By getting cities to pledge to convert city operations to 100% renewable energy by 2035 and all city activities by 2050, that would make a big dent in lowering emissions that pollute our air & water.

National Drive Electric Week

NDEW2014 City Proclamation

September 3, 2014 Space Coast EV Drivers Team

NDEW2014 City of Melbourne Proclamation

On August 26th the Space Coast Electric Vehicle Drivers founders Josh and Brenna attended the City of Melbourne’s National Drive Electric Week City Proclamation reading during August’s City Council meeting. The Proclamation was read by Mayor Kathy Meehan . Julie Foster of the City of Melbourne, a Volt owner, and an SCEV Driver herself also spoke.

Mayor Kathy Meehan reads the City of Melbourne's National Drive Electric Week Proclamation — Mayor Kathy Meehan reads the City of Melbourne’s National Drive Electric Week Proclamation

Julie spoke about the National Drive Electric Week Melbourne Event taking place Sept 20th and invited the attendees of the Council meeting to join us on Saturday Sept. 20th for the event. She also thanked the SCEV Drivers for their hard work and drive to bring this event to Melbourne, Fl.

Julie Foster of the City of Melbourne speaks at the Council meeting.

Tony Patton, a leaf owner and a regular at the SCEV Driver meet ups along with Ken Sherman, a future EV driver, came to show their support. After the proclamation was read we had time for a few more photo opps.

Ken Sherman (not pictured), Tony Patton, Josh Pritt, Brenna Kaminski, Julie Foster, and Mayor Meehan pose for another photo opp.

We are very excited to have the opportunity to work with the City of Melbourne to bring National Drive Electric Week to Melbourne, FL this year. Thanks to all who attend the meeting in person and in spirit! We look forward to seeing everyone on Saturday September 20th from 10-3 at City Hall for the first annual Melbourne, Florida National Drive Electric Week event.

National Drive Electric Week

National Drive Electric Week Update

June 20, 2014 Space Coast EV Drivers Team

Powerpoint title slide showing electric cars and solar panels — Slide one of the SCEV Drivers presentation

Hopefully by now most electric vehicle drivers, owners, enthusiasts and potential owners have heard of National Drive Electric Week (formally National Plug in Day) hosted by City Captains in towns and cities all over the United States and abroad. National Drive Electric Week began in 2011 as National Plug in Day and is officially sponsored by Plug in America, the Electric Auto Association, and the Sierra Club.

National Drive Electric Week aims to “…Heighten awareness of today’s widespread availability of plug-in vehicles and highlight the benefits of all-electric and plug-in hybrid-electric cars, trucks, motorcycles, and more.” This year National Drive Electric Week will be held from September 15-21, 2014 with events happening across America and beyond through out the week. We are happy to say there will be an event held in Melbourne, Florida and as your city captains Josh and Brenna are working to make this event a great success. Josh and Brenna have hosted two successful National plug in Day events in Huntsville, Alabama with their sister group the Tennessee Valley EV Drivers in 2012 and 2013. Using their experience from these events they hope to make Melbourne’s first National Drive Electric Week a huge success.

Over the next few months we will be looking to area volunteers, sponsors and donors to be a part of this grass roots celebration of electric vehicles. The very first goal is to secure a location and today we pitched our request for sponsorship to the City of Melbourne. In the next few weeks the Space Coast Electric Vehicle Drivers team will work to answer any questions the city has to hopefully secure a city sponsored location and more.

Take a look at the presentation from the meeting and be sure to register for your local National Drive Electric Week Event.

Local EV Event

June’s Monthly EV Meet Up Recap

Gallery June 3, 2014 Space Coast EV Drivers Team

Space Coast Electric Vehicle Club members and their cars — SCEV Drivers and their cars

The Space Coast Electric Vehicle (SCEV) Drivers want to thank everyone who made it out to the second meeting on June 1st at Squid Lips in Melbourne, FL. As you can see in the photo above we had six EVs come to this months meet up which is double the number from May’s event. We had three Nissan Leafs, two Chevy Volts and one Toyota RAV4EV just shipped in from California! Can you say awesome!? Not many groups can say they have the RAV4EV so of course we were thrilled to have one in our group so we could check it out. Here are some photos.

RAV4EV

One of the coolest things about this group is the diversity of the drivers. At this month’s event we had drivers who have had their EVs since 2011, drivers who just purchased their car a week ago as well as everything in between. It is great to be able to share stories with potential buyers, new drivers, and the seasoned EV drivers.

Now for the real reason you are here the “what did I miss” recap. Twelve attendees braved the scattered thunderstorms and descended upon Squid Lips in Melbourne from 2-4 PM. Our group took over a good chunk of the parking spaces surrounding the L2 charging station located at the Eau Gallie Library in the parking lot adjacent to Squid Lips where we enjoyed a late lunch, drinks, and good conversation.

Due to an unfortunate mix up two of the twelve were not actually able to find our group and ended up meeting a few interesting characters in their search “We did however meet Jack, Jose and Bud(lite). lol” We are so sorry about that and we have added a phone number to the Facebook page so anyone who has trouble in the future can get in contact with us. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

During the two hours we discussed all things electric vehicle, shared how wonderful the PlugShare app is to our newest EV drivers and talked with a potential EV driver who shared his story of how the local Ford dealers do not have the car he wanted to test drive and the ones they do keep on the lot are not even charged! We discussed Septembers upcoming event for National Drive Electric Week, how our “outreach” aka leaving one of the SCEV business cards on every EV we see while we are out and about is going and more.

The highlight of the event had to be when we asked the manager to come to our table to let him know we chose to meet there because they are so close to the charging stations and he admitted “I have no idea what you are talking about.” We explained that we all drive electric vehicles and the “thing at the end of the library parking lot” is a level 2 charging station. We explained further that it is for our cars, because they do not use gas and he laughed and said to us “that is crazy, I always assumed that was an air pump for all the people who ride bikes around here.” Of course that comment was met with laughter as none of us had ever heard that one before. It was a fun meeting! Check out this short clip from around the table at the event http://youtu.be/dUsSuBD6HlY

Be sure to check the Facebook page and the website for July’s event. Due to the first Sunday being very close to the holiday weekend we are planning to move the event to the second Sunday in July, the 13th. We will meet at the Kohl’s charger in Palm bay 205 Palm Bay Rd NE Melbourne, FL 32904 and walk over to Panera Bread for coffee, snacks, and or good conversation with fellow EV drivers.

Thanks,

Josh and Brenna

It's Electric!