The early Lakers exit and the Councours de Claremont 2013

So… I’m still stinging form the early Lakers exit this year.

However, this blog is about my ActiveE, EVs, etc.

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So, what do the Lakers exit and my ActiveE have to do with each other… Well, this year I decided to do some EVangelizing at my Alma Mater’s 2013 Concours de Claremont. It was held during Alumni Weekend in early May and I thought to join them on the field to display our cars. As you can see from the picture above, there were not so many of us this year, especially compared to last year’s attendance. The event was also sparsely attended this year. Perhaps it has to do with the weather as it was more overcast and rain threatened all weekend.

These stationary sort of car shows are fun, but I think the Plug in Day events are better. Really, the EV smile only clicks in AFTER someone drives an EV and it’s harder on stationary shows.

Here’s a nicer shot of my ActiveE beside a very clean jaguar and Porsche.

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Still the only EV at this event. Next year, I plan on attending with a Tesla Model S, unless I can be convinced that the i3 aesthetics aren’t nearly as bad as I think they are.

Here’s a nice picture of my neighbor, the ICE Jag… He really has such a clean engine.

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One of the benefits of an early Lakers exit from the playoffs was the fact that I was able to spend the entire show on the premises, last year I had to take off early to catch the game at 12:30pm. I got to meet and talk to some of the students, alumni, and faculty and explain why they should look at EVs for their vehicles. I also got to meet a fellow member of the Electronut family. A Freshman at the school’s father is a fellow alumnus and he, the son, stopped by to say “hi.”

If you’ll notice, I again plugged the car in at 120V as the school is just over 50% charge to get to and I figure at slow speed, it just gave me that much more juice to ensure that I got home for a half-day’s slow charge. However, it is important to note that my alma mater actually installed several Blink Network chargers not too far from the field that we were using for the show. I just don’t like to pay for public charging if I don’t need to. This is definitely a BIG improvement over last year, so I should at least praise them for providing the facilities, should I need to use them. Additionally, these pay chargers are cheaper than the ones on Chargepoint at the Pomona College location (on a per hour basis).