The group needs a logo!

Our club has grown in size in just a few months, and we're participating in a couple of events supporting sustainable transportation and EV ownership.

What we need is a logo! All other groups, formal or not, seem to have one. We're working on a flyer to distribute to organizations that want us to participate, and a logo is a great way to get our name on a website or organizational flyer without taking up much room.

If you're interested in working on a logo for our club, please let us know by email or at the next club meeting. I'm thinking of something showing the Colorado Springs area (a mountain silhouette is overdone but very acceptable) and a plug image. It would need to be line art, not a photograph. This makes it easy to reproduce on business cards, and makes it easy to be large or small and still be readable.

As an example, I'm showing the two logos from the DEVC website. They're simple, get the message across and are easy to reproduce. These are trademarked logos, so don't copy anything!

-Wilson Hitchings

My favorite car show wants EVs!

The Colorado Concours d’Elegance & Exotic Sports Car Show at Arapahoe Community College is my favorite car show; I've attended it ever since I knew about it. It's on June 5, Sunday, this year and it's easily the nicest show around. Not only is it for a great charity (Ability Connection Colorado), but it's on the ACC campus lawn and you'll never see a better collection of expensive, rare and exotic automobiles. I've seen cars I didn't know existed there, as well as some I never thought I'd see.

The reason I mention this show is that when I registered for it this year, I called and asked if electric cars would be allowed...the coordinator I spoke with said the show WANTS ELECTRICS and didn't know how to get them to the show! I have offered to be on the committee for the electric contingent, and they would like me to see if any of my fellow EV owners are interested.

Please consider taking your EV to the show (information below) - if enough people go, I'll change my registration to take my Tesla instead of my gas convertible. Note that there will NO CHARGING at the show; if you can't arrange charging to get there and back, I wouldn't advise taking an EV. Hybrids (Volts, Prius, etc.) are not what the show is looking for, so it's EVs only. This is an exotic car show so home-builts are not a possibility, either.

Visit Colorado Concours d’Elegance & Exotic Sports Car Show website for more information and to register your car. It's $50 registration (goes to charity), rain-or-shine, and you must stay until 3:00pm for safety reasons. I do a lot of car shows (about 15 a year) so on the morning of any particular show, I look at the sky, listen to the weather forecast and decide whether to go or not. If I do go, I have blankets in the back of the car in case of rain or hail. Only once in 8 years have I ever had any weather at a show that was an issue. 

I would appreciate it if you would let me know if you register for the show; that way I can accurately report to the committee what our interest is. 

-Wilson Hitchings

Check your email, a message went out using BCC:

I just sent a club message out to our members, but used BCC: (blind carbon copy) to hide the recipient email addresses from view. The message was sent from one of my many email addresses (WHitchings dot Tesla at gmail) so you may need to add that address to your address book.

Please look for the message and let me know if you didn't get it. If this works OK, we'll continue using BCC: for distribution. We want all our members safe, happy and spam-free!

New Member - Chaz Clark

We have another new member, Chaz Clark. Chaz found us on the Tesla Motors forum and by speaking to Steve Innersfield at the Tesla Showroom in Denver. Chaz has a black 2016 Tesla Model S70D on order. Please welcome him when you see him!

Visited a new Tesla club in Denver!

Several of our members made a trip to Denver to visit a new Tesla-only car club. They met from a post on the Tesla forums, Colorado section. It looks like they'll be meeting monthly and have an informal group structure. Our club members told them about our events (Sustainnovate, Custer trip, CSU Open House). I'm hopeful our two groups can coordinate our meetings and events!

New member and an email change...

Our latest new member is Charley Andreasen who hails from Cotopaxi, Colorado and works in Alaska 9  months a year. He's friends with our founder, Mac McCauley, so please make him welcome. He's a future Tesla Model X owner, so we look forward to seeing his car!

 I'm going to start sending out our group messages using Blind Carbon Copy (BCC:) and see if it prevents any users from getting our emails. Depending on your anti-spam software, a group of BCC recipients may block an email but we need to find out. I will send out the April meeting reminder message using BCC: and will place a notice on our club blog when I do so.

We have all the volunteers for the UCCS Sustainnovate event on April 13. To avoid overwhelming UCCS, I will hold off assigning any more of our members to time slots until I hear from UCCS. There are other groups, such as the DEVC, that will also participate in the event and we could cause scheduling problems for the college.

Supercharger trip - Goodland, KS

So I made a spontaneous decision to drive to Goodland, KS this past Saturday and had several surprises. It was a Tesla Supercharger trip all the way (meaning the destination had SCs on the road and at the destination). One of the interesting things was the effect headwind had on my range. There are strong enough winds along the I-70 corridor that there are hundreds of windmills north of the highway. Even from living in California, I've never seen so many. The effect on my car was startling - the drive back from Kansas was apparently into a 25 mph headwind, giving me 35% - 45% range overhead. This is more than I've experienced in single-digit temperatures with no wind.

Getting to I-70 from Colorado Springs using Hwy. 24 had no unexpected overhead. In fact, I went below expected Wh/m near Limon - I actually used less energy than expected. Once I got on I-70, however, I immediately got hit with 30% - 40% overhead headed to Kansas.

Goodland is a small town not too far over the Kansas border, easily reachable (at least heading there) in one charge of my Tesla. Coming back the headwind was so great that I stopped in Limon, CO for just 15 minutes for a quick charge. I needn't have done so, due to the lack of wind after getting off I-70, but while on I-70 the destination cushion went to zero. I could've made it (had I known) with 10% range cushion but I decided to stop and charge anyway.

The world's largest Van Gogh painting (a replica) is in Goodland, KS, as well as the USA's first patented helicopter. The helicopter didn't work but it had the first patent.

-Wilson Hitchings

We get our own parking area and meeting room!

I visited the Balance Rock Cafe today at the Garden of the Gods Trading Post. We will get the West parking lot - the lot to the left when facing the Trading Post - for our April meeting. We also get the basement meeting room, which appears to be a great place for our club. The Studebaker Club recently used the Trading Post for their meeting, so we're not the first car club to visit there.
-Wilson H.

Meet some of our new members

This past monthly meeting we had Eva Håkansson and Bill Dubé join us. I thought I'd publish their promotional card images. Say hello to them the next time they're around!

Welcome new members!

Let's all welcome our newest members:

Ricardo Gutierrez, Jeff Rowland, Jim Field, Steve Coast, Eva Håkansson and Bill Dubé.

Club changes!

One of our members suggested we move the monthly meeting to the SECOND Saturday each month. This will allow some military reservists to attend, and also eliminates a conflict with some "First Saturday" car club meetings.

The group today voted to meet up in Denver for lunch prior to the Canopy Airport Tour next month. Several restaurants are available (see the Club Events page), we will decide by the next meeting where to meet before the 1:00pm Canopy Parking tour.

PEV experience interviews

Greetings,

I was contacted by Jason Harper with Argonne National Laboratories requesting I pass on the following request for participation. 

Jason Harper is a Principal Electrical Engineer in the EV-Smart Grid Interoperability Center at Argonne National Laboratory.  He is part of a team in a Department of Energy program tasked in interviewing Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV) drivers, PEV fleet owners or PEV dealers to learn more about their experience charging, owning and maintaining a PEV.  He would be very interested in hearing your opinion about your experiences as this can help his team focus its efforts in developing helpful tools for the PEV community. He will be in the Denver area on March 16 and 17 and was wondering if you could be available one afternoon for a brief 20 minute interview so his team can get your thoughts on your experiences with your PEV.  He would also be interested in getting more contacts or potential interview candidates that would be willing to meet with him and his team or talk on the phone to chat about their PEV experience.  Please feel free to pass on this opportunity.  Please contact Jason via email jharper@anl.gov if you are interested in setting up a quick meeting.

Thanks,

J David McNeil

DEVC Secretary

New Member - Kevin Gilford, UCCS Sustainability Department

While conversing with UCCS about the Sustainnovate event on April 13, the Assistant Sustainability Director, Kevin Gilford, asked to join our club! He has a 2001 Prius converted to PHEV (plug-in hybrid). When you see him, make him welcome!

Don't forget - March meeting is this Saturday!

Our next group meeting is this Saturday, March 5, 2016, at Old Chicago Pizza Restaurant @ 11:30am on Austin Bluffs and Academy Blvd. in Colorado Springs, CO. We're in the banquet room in the back, under the group name "Wilson". We have a different venue next month and a lot of events coming up, so be at the meeting for the latest information!