EV Club 2023 – Year in Review
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
