Post-Event Recap: Penfield Drive Electric Earth Day

The faithful among Rochester area EV owners and interested public were out in full force on Saturday as the Drive Electric Earth Day event was held at the Penfield Community Center. How do we know it was the faithful that showed up? The 20 mph winds and snow ensured that to be the case!

First, to provide a high-level overview of the event, there were a total of 43 EVs & owners participating in the community education event, 15 of which were Teslas! Among discussions, Q&A, and show and tells, there were also some test rides given to the attending public.

The TOCNYS tent doing its job well: nobody got sunburnt or had a heat stroke at the event!

Next for some first-hand accounts, we'll pass things off to a couple Tesla Owners Club New York State members, first of which is Morgan W:

Penfield NY's spring EV meet for 2019 did not disappoint, although Mother Nature tried to slow the proceedings with unseasonably harsh weather. Access to the Penfield Library for warm ups and free donuts and coffee compensated for the weather. Five long rows of EVs hunkered down in the library's lot near the Penfield public car chargers, some of the first public EV chargers installed in our region.

People came to share their rides. The EV home kit car builders, including the legendary Blue Bug EV, were again in attendance. These home built EVs use all kinds of batteries and most predate the commercially made EVs. The constructors driving them know whereof they speak.

Recent used EV purchasers included a fellow and his dog Nigel, happy in their newly bought used 17' BMW i3. This carbon fiber car is getting scarce in showrooms but if you look it’s a great used EV. This one had 23 K on the clock and cost the same, 23K. In addition to his new used off-lease Fiat 500 EV, another attendee car guy has a Lotus and a Jaguar and does all his own work on cars. He can sure shop! His late model Fiat EV, purchased off lease from the west coast cost him just $7000!

Many, many new and used Teslas appeared. Tesla has the only full line of EVs and they were all in Penfield on Saturday: The Model S, Model X, and Model 3. One veteran EV owner of a recently-bought, super clean used Model S arrived still trapped in his car's restrictive Valet Mode. TOCNYS rescued him, so that he can now open the glove box and exceed 70mph :) The Model 3 Performance I was hoping to beg a ride in did not appear. "My wife's got it someplace!" explained the car's owner, stepping out of his Model S. People interested in owning these cars found Tesla owners through the snowstorm and gathered data and took rides. Electric vehicles make sense, and talking to the people who own them is still the best way to understand why the cars are gaining in popularity.

Considering the weather, not all the interaction happened outside exposed to the elements. TOCNYS member Jill B. shares how her "interior outreach" went:

I had people join me in my car, including several singles and an entire family, parents and 3 kids: 16, 10-ish and 2 years old! I showed them as many bells and whistles I could think of. The father asked about the rear view mirror, as he had read you couldn’t manually adjust it and I assured him those adjustments could be made. They did like the amount of legroom in both front and back. Mom really liked the Model 3, but agreed that realistically the X would be better for their needs. Another gentleman got in the driver's seat and got a good feel for the car - thank goodness he didn’t ask anything I couldn’t answer :)

Thanks to Tesla and non-Tesla EV owners alike, willing to brave the springtime Winter weather, more and more of the public have been and will be able to experience the future of transportation that's already available. The Penfield Drive Electric Earth Day event has kick-started the Spring/Summer event season successfully - the only thing left is a little cooperation from the sun!

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