Gabe Shenhar, Associate Director of the Auto Test Program for Consumer Reports, to Speak to Club

Gabe will review the results of recent Consumer Reports testing for the following vehicles:

• Mercedes EQE SUV
• Genesis GV60
• Cadillac Lyriq
• Acura ZDX
• Lexus RZ
• Chevy Equinox EV
• Tesla Cybertruck
• Volvo XC60 (PHEV)

Date: Tuesday, December 3rd

Time: 7 – 8:30 PM

We have booked a somewhat long meeting due to the number of vehicles we are covering. There will be time for Q&A.

Free registration is required here.

Ribbon Cutting, Featuring Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons

With approximately 20,000 registered Teslas in CT and only one service center, this additional coverage will be welcomed by Tesla owners.

The new service center, located at 106 Commerce Road in Stamford, near the border with Old Greenwich, is a service and leasing center like the facility in Milford. There is a showroom. Leasing paperwork can be completed. And test drives can be arranged. There can be no discussion of costs, financing or anything else that falls under the label of “sales,” as the franchise laws prohibit this and prevent Tesla from opening stores.

For leased vehicles, even though the paperwork can be completed in Stamford or Milford, vehicle delivery must occur at Mohegan Sun or Mt. Kisco, NY. (Where the delivery occurs is generally not up to the customer.) For customers leasing or purchasing a car from inventory, a lot of that inventory locally is stored at Mt. Kisco. The delivery experience between the two locales differs in that a vehicle delivered at Mohegan Sun will be registered in CT, whereas a Mt. Kisco delivery will come with a temporary NY registration and temp plates. Tesla will then transfer the registration to CT.

A welcome announcement came from Mayor Simmons when she revealed that the city will be converting its fleet to electric. And the project to install 12 dual-port, level 2 chargers in Government Center Garage will be moving forward.

As welcome as this is, we (and Tesla) know that the greater Hartford area is the biggest remaining need. The facility under construction in Springfield, MA, expected to open next year, will partially help.

EV Test Drives, Showcase, and Symposium on September 15th and 16th

We would like to thank everyone who joined us for the NorthEast Electric Vehicle Symposium (NEEVS).

Sunday attendance was approximately 250 for the EV showcase, test drives, and sage on a stage presentations. About 200 test drives were given. Another 80 or so joined us on Monday for the presentations.

Thank you to our sponsors for generously supporting this event:

Gold Sponsor: BMW

Silver Sponsors: Live Green CT, EVNoire, West Electric, Eastern Mechanical Services

Bronze Sponsors: New Haven Clean Cities, Leifer Properties, Ikea, Inductive Autoworks, Earthlight Energy Solutions, Capitol Area Clean Cities, Connecticut Green Bank, Flux Marine, Tecknow, Alfa Romeo of Westport, Hotel Marcel, Ikea, Conservation Law Foundation, Pirelli and Susan Vanech Properties/Compass Coastal.

Photos from the Event:

Labels: Row 1 – Daphne Dixon, Claire Abate of Live Green CT; Alpha Romero Tonale, Rich Jordan of CT Tesla Club with attendee

Row 2 – Bryce Jones of Pirelli Tires; BMW iX, i5, i4 for test drives; Phil Levieff, Analiese Mione, Dawn Henry, Demetri Spantidos, Daphne Dixon, Barry Kresch

Row 3 – Rivian E-Van, Battle EV Garbage Truck, Analiese Mione, Brandon Smith

Row 4 – Flux Marine e-boat, EV Club booth, Westport Police with Tesla Model 3 and Y patrol cars

Row 5 – Jon Untied of Inductive Auto, Tesla Cybertruck ready for tailgating with TV and cold drinks, Barry Kresch and Charles Rothenberger of Save the Sound

Row 6 – EV truck from Battle; Panelists Mike Ferrell, Sharon Huttner, Mike Frisbie, Stephan Hartmann, Iline Mirkine; Daphne Dixon

Row 7 – PURA Chair Marissa Gillett, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, Team Earthlight

Row 8 – Brandon Smith; Flux Marine, Dawn Henry, Demetri Spantidos, Bruce Becker

Row 9 – Paul Braren, Rivian R1S, Maxwell e-shuttle

NorthEast Electric Vehicle Symposium Set for September 15th and 16th

We thank our Gold Sponsor: BMW

Sunday – EV Test Drives

Sunday will feature test drives with 10 EV models:

• BMW i4, i5, iX
• Tesla Cybertruck
• Rivian R1T, R1S
• Alfa Romeo Tonale
• Kia EV6, EV9, Niro

Sunday – EV Showcase

There will be a showcase with approximately 50 vehicles. These include many late-model EVs, such as a BMW i7 and a Tesla Model X, an electric garbage truck used by the City of New Haven, and 2 electric police patrol cars from Westport.

Sunday – “Sage on a Stage” Short Presentations

We will be using the bed of an electric pickup truck as our stage! Here is the agenda.

Monday Policy Symposium

• 9:00 – New Haven Mayor Justin Eliker welcomes attendees
• 9:15 – Rep. Jonathan Steinberg introduces Marissa Gillett
• 9:25 – Marissa Gillett, Chair, Public Utilities Regulatory Authority discussing transportation electrification and the equitable modern grid
• 10:15 –  Claire Coleman, CT Office of Consumer Counsel
• 10:45 – Break
• 11:00 – Moderator Matt Ferrell of the YouTube Undecided Channel leads a panel discussion of people from a municipality, condo association, commercial enterprise, and an installation contractor, who describe their experiences navigating incentives, wrangling the utilities, and other challenges. This is a ground-truth level look at the intersection of policy and lived experience.
• 12:00 Lunch
• 1:00 – Brandon Smith of EVNoire discusses how workplace charging promotes fair access to EVs.
• 1:45 – Daphne Dixon of Live Green CT discusses Model EV Zoning Regulations that have been developed in concert with the federal Department of Energy.

This is a free event. The location is the Hotel Marcel in New Haven. Free registration is here.

Above photo is a wrapped Cybertruck which ships with the stainless steel body panels. We have seen lots of folks having fun with wrapping it.

First Public Test Drives of a Cybertruck to Be Offered at NorthEast Electric Vehicle Symposium

Tesla has confirmed that they will offer supervised Cybertruck test drives. This will be the first public test drive of the Cybertruck offered in the state. We hope you can join us!

Steer By Wire, High Voltage Architecture

While there are many strong opinions about this polarizing vehicle, Tesla has introduced features that have not yet been rolled out to other models. The vehicle is reportedly extremely nimble due to 4-wheel steering and steer-by-wire. A little bit of pressure on the steering wheel sends a signal down the wire to the motors, making for extremely responsive handling. This ~6500 pound vehicle will handle like a compact car.

The truck has an 800-volt architecture which, for high-power EVSE, will make for blazingly fast charging speeds. The other thing 800 volt architecture does is reduce the amount of wiring needed.

The not so low-voltage battery is a 48 volt lithium ion battery. We have been living with 12-volt since the mid-fifties (before then, the standard was 6-volt). Over the past 70 years, way more electronics have been introduced into vehicles. It is only a matter of time until higher power levels become the norm.

Here’s Where to Go Cybertruckin

NorthEast Electric Vehicle Symposium

Date/Time: Sunday, September 15th, 12-4

Location: Hotel Marcel, 500 Sargent Drive, New Haven, CT

Policy symposium on Monday, September 16th

The event page is here.

Free registration is required. We do have a capacity limitation. Please register here.

Other available test drive vehicles include the BMW i4, i5, and iX, the Rivian R1T and R1S, and the Alfa Romeo Tonale. It is permitted to test drive multiple vehicles. That will be arranged separately.

Attendees can register for either or both days.

For any questions, please contact us at info@evclubct.com

BMW Signs on as Gold Sponsor

They will offer test drives of the i4, i5, and iX battery electric vehicles. There will be an i7 on display in the showcase.

In addition to BMW, we have confirmation for the Rivian R1T and R1S, as well as Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. We are working on a couple of others.

There will also be a Tesla Cybertruck and a Rivian e-delivery van in the showcase. Amazon has purchased 100,000 of these vans and Rivian is using them for mobile service.

Test drives are offered on Sunday, September 15th, from 12-4PM. The event is being held at the Hotel Marcel in the Long Wharf area of New Haven. Here is the event page with registration link for the NorthEast Electric Vehicle Symposium 2024.

Photo above of the school bus battery pack

More EVs and More First-Responder Training

The EV club got its first request a couple of years ago from the Westport fire department asking if the club could have some owners bring their EVs to a training session. Since then, the requests have become more frequent. EVs are a lot more visible now but not widespread enough that help wrangling them isn’t needed. The club has supported trainings in Westport, Wilton, Fairfield, Northvale, Enfield, and now New Haven. This particular New Haven session was organized by Greater New Haven Clean Cities.

Participation

The EV Club greatly appreciates the EV owners who have brought their vehicles to these trainings to support our first-responders. If readers of this blog are interested in participating in future requests – and there will be some, we just don’t know when or where – please reach out to the EV Club using our webform or at info@evclubct.com

Firefighters See Several EVs and Electric Schoolbus

EVs present unique challenges in a serious accident. People may need to be extricated and firefighters must learn where the cable connections are and how to de-power the vehicle (assuming the vehicle hasn’t already done so on its own, which many are programmed to do). And in the event of a fire, special procedures must be employed.

This was a particularly well-attended session with approximately 60 first-responders in attendance.

EVs present were a Kia Niro, Tesla Model Y, Chevy Bolt, Chevy Volt, Ford F-150 Lightning, and an electric school bus.  CT has received a federal grant for 50 electric school buses, so the presence of a bus was timely.

The bus has a 317 kWh battery and gets 200 miles of range. It is equipped for bi-directional charging, though it hasn’t been enabled. One of the issues for bi-directional is that there is still a lot to be learned about how the battery will hold up with numerous additional cycles and who is responsible if it needs to be replaced prematurely. In some places, the utility owns the battery and takes responsibility, but that kind of arrangement is not in effect in CT.

2023 was a notable year for the club as it produced a fully subscribed symposium and began a partnership with People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE).

Northeast Electrical Vehicle Symposium

The EV Club produced its first conference, along with an EV showcase, in conjunction with the CT Tesla Owners Club. It was fully subscribed and is planned to be an annual event. It was hosted at the zero-emissions, LEED Platinum Hotel Marcel in New Haven, and covered topics ranging from the Advanced Clean Cars regulations to electrifying one’s home, EV incentives, utility programs, local EV-friendly zoning and a keynote from You-Tuber Out of Spec Dave. Recap here.

PACE

We have been working increasingly closely with the PACE (People’s Action for Clean Energy) organization. Our collaboration began with data, as we contributed the vehicle data we obtain to the data they use to analyze municipal energy use. This is a service that PACE offers free to any municipality – they’ll quantify energy use and show where there are opportunities to decarbonize.

We are aligned on policy as both organizations support direct sales, regulations for clean vehicles, the Energy Data Bill of Rights, and expanded distributed and shared solar.

We support each other’s events. This allows each of us to improve coverage throughout the state.

PACE offers a number of services for communities, including supporting HeatSmart campaigns for heat pump adoption, help with solar canopy siting, and data on building efficiency.

Finally, PACE has also been giving the club some financial support. We may be a volunteer organization, but we do have expenses! They also accept donations on our behalf. Go here. After clicking on an amount, you will go to a page that allows you to designate how you would like the donation to be used. Choose “create your own,” and type in “EV Club.”

First Responders

The EV Club continues to support our first responders when they hold EV training events. This year we worked with Fairfield, Windsor Locks, Northville, and Middlebury.

Incentives

Incentives are now more numerous, more complex, and a moving target. We decode them and keep up to date with changes for the federal and state EV purchase incentives, as well as the charging incentives offered by the utilities. This is our incentives page. We have worked with a number of individual members to sort through these and help with questions. We also had the opportunity to speak at length with Eversource regarding how to operationally improve the consumer experience with respect to incentives and dealing with voltage sags and transformer sizes that could limit solar production.

Our near term outlook is that the Foreign Entity of Concern rules, the first half of which take effect in January 2024, will cause a reduction in the number of incentive-eligible EVs.

The other important near term item is the transfer option. This enables the consumer to obtain the incentive as a point of purchase rebate rather than a tax credit. The consumer has an option to do one or the other. Aside from getting the incentive sooner, it also enables people who do not have the tax liability to burn off a tax credit to be able to utilize the incentive.

EV Showcases

We continue to support as many EV showcases as we can by helping to publicize the events, and recruiting owners to exhibit their vehicles. We encourage all EV owners to participate in these as it is a great way to discuss the virtues of driving electric and leave out the politics. We also supported and participated in events by Electric Car Guest Drive in New York.

The Club itself staged 2 showcases, one in May and a second in September as part of the Symposium. We were happy to include a Tesla Model Y patrol car owned by the Westport Police. We thank the CT Tesla Owners Club for working with us on these and for arranging for Tesla to give test drives.

If you would like us to post your showcase event, please see this post about the information we need.

Speaking Engagements and Tabling

• Stonington Energy Fair
• Fairfield Warde High School
• Interreligious Eco-Justice Network Forum on Advanced Clean Cars II, Greenwich
• Central Connecticut State University

Zoom Meeting Presentations

• SPAN – smart panels – what they’re about and what is involved in installing one in your home
• Renowned teardown artist and automotive engineer, Sandy Munro, tells it like it is
• IRA deep-dive into the EV incentives

Policy/News

• Rivian, after fending off a dealership lawsuit, has broken ground on a service center in Shelton.
• First Tesla Magic Dock in CT.
• Participation continues with the national Electric Vehicle Association Policy Committee.
• The last couple of years have been difficult regarding state level environmental legislation. Advanced Clean Cars II is stalled. It is possible it may come back but not certain. We continue to support a direct sales bill and the Energy Data Bill of Rights.
• EV Club CT had a presence at the Cybertruck Reveal Event.
• EV Club is happy to work with municipalities on EV charging, such as the new installation of 12 level 2 chargers (80 amp) in Westport.

EV Club Invited to Grand Opening of Tesla Sales and Delivery Center

This is the facility that is being built on tribal land at the Mohegan Sun Casino complex. The event is 12/20 and registration is here.

Much of the reporting in the mainstream press about this facility labels it as a loophole or a way to skirt the law. We believe this to be a mischaracterization. Tesla is following the law. Federally recognized tribes hold sovereign power on tribal land. It is up to the Tribal Council to approve such a facility and they don’t run scared from dealerships.

Data

We were able to bring the EV Dashboard back, tracking the level and characteristics of EV adoption in Connecticut. Access to data was granted courtesy of Atlas Public Policy, but sourced from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Continued tracking of EV rebates by dealership, which is our proxy for which dealers are EV-friendly (applicable, obviously, only to those that sell CHEAPR-eligible vehicles). This typically gets updated around March of each year – it depends on when the data get published by DEEP.

Videos!

Find them on our YouTube channel

• New electric police patrol cars in Westport and Wethersfield (Tesla Model Y and Ford Mustang Mach-E, respectively)
• Owner video – Andre and his Polestar 2
• Fairfield First Responder EV training
• Sandy Munro and Corey Steuben riffing about all things EV and batteries (Meeting recording)
• Inflation Reduction Act Deep Dive (Meeting recording)
• Tesla Magic Dock Closeup
• Smart Panel discussion with SPAN (Meeting recording)
• Hotel Marcel Tech Deep Dive – Bruce Becker, Paul Braren, Will Cross

2023 CT Energy Expo in Hartford

This event, the 2023 Energy Expo, will take place on October 19-21, 2023 at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford.  The Expo, which is free to the public, is structured to be like a home and garden show, car show, boat show, etc. and will be three days of exhibitors presenting renewable energy, energy efficiency, home improvements, and electric vehicles/alternative fuel vehicles.

EV Owners Wanted

Those organizing the expo have invited members of the EV Club of CT (well, any EV owners) to exhibit their cars in the outdoor expo lot. Club members exhibiting their vehicles do not pay an exhibitor fee.  You can exhibit for any or all of the 3 days of the event.

You have to commit for a full day for each day you exhibit. You would need to commit to get the car to the Connecticut Convention Center by 10 AM on October 19, or 8 AM on October 20 or 21, and if you need to leave, you will have to do so after 6 PM each day.  If you want to exhibit for two or all three days, you can leave the car overnight – you are not required to move it, but if you need to, it just has to be after 6 PM.  You can stay onsite to talk about your vehicle during the day, or you can leave it and come back to get it at the end of the day. You are welcome to spend time in the Expo.

As far as other vehicles, as part of the indoor expo there will be 2 new BMWs, 2 new Mercedes, 1 new Mini, 1 new Moke, and 1 new golf cart (along with our friends from Inductive Autoworks displaying a conversion vehicle).  And outside (where you would be exhibiting), there will be an interactive mobile unit displaying energy efficiency solutions, an electric city bus (from DOT), 2 electric boats, electric scooters, and an electric freight (semi) truck.

Participation

The Expo is being produced by the CT Power & Energy Society (CPES). If you would like to participate, please contact CPES president, Alex Judd, directly at ajudd@daypitney.com or 202-494-2299.

Photo at top taken under one of the solar canopies at the Hotel Marcel with the building in the background, from left to right: Daphne Dixon – Live Green CT, Paul Wessel – Greater New Haven Clean Cities, and Analiese Mione, Barry Kresch, Bruce Becker, and Paul Braren from the EV Club who organized the symposium.

“Sold-out” Conference

Well, it was free, but there was more interest than we were able to accommodate and we had to close registration. Early feedback has been extremely positive, such as this message:

“I attended the NEEVS yesterday and had a fantastic time. What a great lineup of speakers/presentations and lots of fun at the car show as well! I’m looking forward to future symposiums in the coming years. …. Again, I had a great time at the symposium (and the lunch was incredible).”

We would like to thank our sponsors: Live Green CT, Greater New Haven Clean Cities Coalition, EVConnect, Maxwell Vehicles, and ChargePoint, without whom we would have been munching on stale pretzels.

Of course, we also thank our attendees for joining us and being an engaged and interactive audience.

The Hotel Marcel provided excellent, eco-friendly hospitality. For anyone who may be nervous about switching from a gas to an induction cooktop, the quality of the food attested to how good induction cooking can be. Even the chafing dishes were induction.

We’ve had some comments about how a small committee was able to put together a jam-packed agenda in a short period of time. If anything, the challenge is less about finding content than winnowing it down to fit within our time parameters. As it was, our 3-hour speaker agenda took 4 hours with too little time for Q&A.

We want to give a shout-out to Rich Jordan, president of the CT Tesla Owners Club, for his help with the car show, to the Westport Police Department and their Model Y patrol car, and to Tesla for bringing vehicles for test drives.

Converted EV Van

Hotel Marcel architect and developer, Bruce Becker, talked about how Maxwell Vehicles converted an ICE van to electric, using a salvaged Model 3 battery and drive train. This van gets a lot of use shuttling guests to downtown New Haven, Yale, Union Station, Tweed Airport, and other destinations.

Out of Spec Dave

YouTube and X (Twitter) personality, Out of Spec Dave from Greenwich, CT, talked about his adventures as a road warrior, having driven lots of different EVs and experienced the many faces of public charging. Not all of them are happy faces. Part of the charging experience is knowing before you get to a charger whether the charger is in service and how fast it is charging. There is a gap in the eco-system here. He has launched the “Rate Your Charge” newsletter. Take a video or photo of your charge, describe your experience, and tag @outofspecdave on Twitter. These are being compiled in a weekly report posted to Twitter. For those not on Twitter, use this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9nE1JOulqidJNacpL230TdswfnnaWBTjdGIaky3ffkHF6EA/viewform?pli=1

PACE

Mark Scully from People’s Action for Clean Energy (PACE) spoke about their program to help municipalities decarbonize and save money in the process. This slide illustrates the cost savings projected in a transition to renewables.

United Illuminating

We get many questions regarding whether widespread EV adoption will crash the grid. While the grid does need to be modernized (and the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority has a grid modernization docket), Rick Rosa from Avangrid/UI discussed using EVs to optimize the grid. This slide is an example of optimization vs curtailment. EVs will be beneficial to the grid for the foreseeable future and, as such, there are incentives for EV owners to participate. See our incentives page for a more detailed description of the program with links to sign up for the residential or commercial incentives. This program is also offered by Eversource and it can offset the costs of buying and installing a 240 volt charger, as well as pay an ongoing incentive to participate in their managed charging programs.

Zoning for EV Readiness

Daphne Dixon of Live Green CT, who has done a lot of work with municipalities, gave a presentation that illustrated the complexity of zoning for EVs but also highlighted the significant benefits as noted in the example below.

All Electric, Zero Emission Home

Paul Braren provided a detailed description of his journey to create an all-electric home (solar roof seen in the photo, powerwall/VPP, 2 EVs, insulation for home and windows, heat pumps, smart panel, electric garden tools) and capture the available incentives. It has been a complicated road. This links to his full presentation.

IRA Transfer Provision

In his update on incentives, EV Club President, Barry Kresch, discussed the implementation of the transfer provision in 2024, and how it changes a tax credit into a point of sale rebate.

Advanced Clean Cars II

CT is a participant in the California Air Resources Board emissions requirements. It is now in the process of implementing the second phase of these regulations, commencing in 2027 through 2035. The rules require manufacturers to sell increasing amounts of zero emission light-duty vehicles, reaching 100% in 2035.  There is a separate set of regulations that would significantly lower emissions for medium and heavy-duty vehicles during this same period. Charles Rothenberger, Climate Attorney for Save the Sound, explained these regulations. The legislature has authorized CT DEEP to proceed with the required multi-step process. The slide below shows where we are and the remaining steps.

There is some concern that when the rules go back to the legislature, in which a bi-partisan review committee is supposed to examine them for legal sufficiency, that there may be an effort by opponents to short-circuit the approvals process. More on that to come.

We hope you see you next time!!!