Drive Sustainable!

Drive Sustainable!
Our club members drive all kinds of EVs (Teslas, BMWs, Jaguars, Leafs, Bolts, Fords, Audis, electric bikes...)

Saturday, January 30, 2016

The new cards are here

The cards we leave at supercharger locations have arrived. They will make us famous...


Friday, January 29, 2016

Autonomous Driving test...and the winner is...

I wondered when a comparison would be done!

http://imgur.com/a/SWdVx

Faraday Future lured to Nevada

I'm not sure how viable Faraday Future is; the only prototype vehicle they show doesn't look practical whatsoever. I also can't tell, from the pictures, what the seating is - is it traditional tandem seating, or is it a bobsled arrangement? We surely don't need another bankrupt EV company using state or federal funds, but I wish them the best.

http://www.autoblog.com/2016/01/28/nevada-lawmakers-spent-250000-lure-faraday-future/#slide-3756536

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Welcome our new member, Tom Gorab!

We have a new member, Tom Gorab, who owns a 2013 Tesla Model S P85. We hope to see him at our next monthly luncheon; please make him welcome.

Tesla goes to space!

Thanks to Warren Jokinen for this tip on the KRDO news clip. I'll have to go by the Space Foundation Visitor's Center (4425 Arrowswest Dr, Colorado Springs, CO 80907) on Garden of the Gods Road and check it out...

http://www.krdo.com/news/Space-Foundation-gets-a-charge/37625962

Mac McCauley and I visited the place today, tried out the 40-amp chargers!




Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Monday, January 25, 2016

Club Supercharger business card

Please see the club business card sample below. You're welcome to use it as an example for your own business card (I did!) but please realize a few things with this card:

  1. Yes, I KNOW it says Tesla on the front when we are actually a group of many car brands. The primary use of this card is to leave at the Tesla Supercharger in downtown Colorado Springs, or to give to the media. We can certainly make a more generic card for club members if they like.
  2. Yes, I KNOW that's a photo of MY car. We wanted the card printed quickly and it's what I had on hand. 
  3. This is not the latest version, that one (being printed) has a blank line on the back to put your personal information.
  4. Feel free to make your own cards to give at shows based upon this design, and I suggest you use your club email address to prevent giving out a personal email address.
  5. The scan image is bad but the printed card will be much better.
  6. I used PrintsMadeEasy on the web to print it; there are many such companies but that's the one I've used for years. The first 100 cards, about $20 (plus shipping); 500 are $50 (plus shipping). 


Tesla sues Falcon Wing supplier for a delay coming to market...

Well, now we know there are sub-contractors involved with Teslas. I thought everything was made in-house except the batteries. Tesla has dropped the initial supplier of their Falcon Wing doors and is suing them.

Read here: http://www.autoblog.com/2016/01/25/tesla-model-x-falcon-wing-supplier-lawsuit/

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Interesting YouTube video from a Leaf owner

I follow ("subscribe") to a YouTube channel by Ian Sampson. He lives in the UK and has owned a Nissan Leaf for a year or two, one of the early adopters. I find his experience with his Leaf in the UK quite interesting...he's driven his battery dry, arrived home with "- - -" on the battery gauge, hauled large packages in it and absolutely loves it. Regardless of your brand preference for an electric vehicle, I recommend his videos for a real-world peek into EV ownership.

As an example, Ian just published a new video, Episode 89, of his low-battery experience and his test drive of a new UK owner's Tesla 70D with autopilot. 

Due to a poor choice of blog designs, I am unable to publish the direct link to Ian's video because our blog software will not reference an "https://" link when you've purchased your own domain name as we have. I recommend our group dismiss our blog administrator with a generous severance package.

If you'd like to see Ian's video, please go to YouTube and search on "Episode 89 - Nissan Leaf Owner" or search on Ian Sampson and look for Episode 89. 

Saturday, January 23, 2016

My range experience traveling from Colorado Springs to Albuquerque

Being a veteran Tesla owner for hundreds of thousands of minutes, I thought I'd share my recent nice-weather EV experience to New Mexico. It was amazingly easy to plan and the trip was very pleasant. At my age, drinking the caffeinated and frequent beverages I do, stopping for 30 minutes to charge every couple of hours was GREAT.

Here's how I plan my trip:

  1. Use the weather app on your phone or on the Internet to find the temperature prediction for the day you're leaving.
  2. Use EVTripPlanner to plot the distance between each charging point. You can certainly put your final destination instead of each waypoint, it's just a matter of choice.
  3. I run/print the EVTripPlanner output 3 times - once for the expected temperature and two more times for 10 degrees a time less than the expected temperature. For example, if I expect 30 degrees F for my trip, I run the estimate again changing only the temperature to 20 degrees F, then again for 10 degrees F. You will be surprised how much the expected temperature can change your rated miles.
  4. Add whatever distance cushion you're comfortable with. This last weekend's trip being my first one, I added 25% additional rated miles to whatever EVTripPlanner came up with. After my trip, I would not use estimates as low as 15% depending on how cold it gets. I found that the "Trip" tab on the Tesla energy app was dead-on about your remaining battery %. I prefer to know what I'll have left at my next charging point so I can adjust my driving habits to save energy if necessary. I found that in all cases, the energy remaining estimate was within 2-3%.
  5. Set autopilot, read a book. 
  6. If you're not on a Supercharger route, use Plugshare.com website (or the phone app) to find alternate charging points along your route. Call Domino's Pizza and request a delivery pizza at the charging place you select. If Domino's won't deliver to that location, DO NOT CHARGE there. That's also a great tip when buying real estate! You don't want to live anywhere Domino's won't deliver pizza, just sayin'.
  7. Plan on 30 minutes of Supercharge to put back approx. 120 miles between chargers.
-Wilson Hitchings, Veteran Tesla Owner since Sept. 2015

Friday, January 22, 2016

Panasonic investing over a billion $ in the Gigafactory

When completed, Tesla's Gigafactory will manufacture more batteries than the world makes right now. Panasonic, the current sub-contractor that supplies Tesla with batteries, is investing in the factory. This surprises me, as it implies that Panasonic will somehow benefit from the Gigafactory's output. I assumed that Tesla would cancel any outside supplier of batteries and use its own production to cut costs.

Read the article here: https://chargedevs.com/newswire/panasonic-will-spend-up-to-1-6-billion-on-tesla-gigafactory/

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Printing car show business cards

The EV club is printing up business cards that show our club blog address and gives information about our group. We would like the Denver Tesla Service Center to give out a card to any new owners that might be interested. A sample run (100) of our cards are being printed and once the club approves them, we'll run of a larger amount and give each member a number to hand out at car shows.

As a veteran car show exhibitor, I have always had business cards available to hand out at a show. They help visitors to remember you if there's a popular vote being taken, and have helped interested parties to contact me for things like charity events and special exhibits.

In case you're interested in making your own cards (it's a great place to use our club forwarding addresses!), feel free to visit www.printsmadeeasy.com . There are many places on the web that will print business cards, this is just the one I've used for years.

Suggestion made for EV charging at truck stops

One night late this week, I sent an email suggestion to Love's Truck Stops to add EV charging to their chain of stores. I've been to several Love's Truck Stops and found them clean and attractive places to refuel and have a break.

To my surprise, I received a response rather quickly late at night. The reply is below, as is my initial suggestion. I have NO IDEA if they'll actually consider adding vehicle charging to their stores, but I was pleased that someone actually read my email!

Love's response:

Hello Wilson, thank you so much for your suggestion to add car charging stations to our stores. That sounds like a great idea and we’ll make certain it is passed along accordingly. We want to know what’s important to you and appreciate the time you’ve taken to reach out to us!
Have a wonderful day!

Best regards,
Jeri D.
Love’s Travel Stops
My original suggestion:
As a new electric car owner, I think Love's retail locations would be even better if they had electric car charging stations. You would attract a growing market of non-gasoline purchasers to your locations. Please note that electric car owners make excellent customers! They would remain at your locations longer than a gasoline customer, which means more sales. The charger hardware is relatively inexpensive, the electricity to charge a car is almost free. Feel free to contact me for information about EV (electric vehicle) owners. -Wilson Hitchings

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

New Mexico Tesla Owners

In a multi-state coordination effort, I visited Albuquerque, NM during the MLK holiday. One of their members had a Tesla Model X to show, and I had the best grilled cheese sandwich I've ever had at the Range Cafe. I'll share my many experiences in New Mexico at our next monthly meeting. In the meantime, enjoy the photos!
-Wilson Hitchings









Monday, January 18, 2016

New Chevy Bolt may be stalled out of the shoot...

A vital part of any EV vehicle is a charging network. While municipalities are slowly installing charging stations (and Nissan dealers have J1772 chargers), any EV without a nationwide network of chargers has a bleak future. It looks like GM isn't committed to the new Bolt:

https://chargedevs.com/newswire/the-bolt-ev-is-on-the-way-but-gm-has-no-plans-to-invest-in-fast-charging-infrastructure/

Friday, January 15, 2016

Out-of-town Tesla event this MLK weekend

There is a Tesla lunch taking place in Albuquerque, NM this Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016 at noon, sponsored by the Tesla Club of New Mexico. So far 30 people are signed up to go (all from New Mexico, I think!). I'll be going and spending the night in Albuquerque. While Tesla lunches aren't new, this group will have at least one, and maybe two, Tesla Model X's there. I can't just announce the location, the group needs an accurate headcount for the restaurant so you'll need to:
  1. Join "meetup.com" and then 
  2. Join the Tesla NM group, then
  3. RSVP on their meetup page. It sounds more troublesome than it is, believe me.
Our club may want to consider joining "meetup.com", we can certainly discuss it at the next club lunch (first Saturday in Feb.).

The link to the Tesla Club of New Mexico is Tesla-Club-of-New-Mexico. Just go to the site and inside of 3 minutes you can sign up and RSVP, easy peasy.

As a new owner, I'm looking forward to my first overnight trip in a Tesla to see how well I judge driving range, supercharging times, etc. The trip to Albuquerque is 100% doable in a Model S85 as there are Superchargers all along the way (COS -> Trinidad -> Las Vegas, NM -> Albuquerque).

 -Wilson H.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

New Member

Welcome Tyler Patzel of Colorado Springs, CO to our club. He has a Tesla P85D and we look forward to having him join our meetings and events.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Tesla featured in a local newspaper article

The new Tesla Supercharger was featured in an article by the Gazette, see below.

Gazette News Article

Monday, January 11, 2016

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Tesla owners get a new feature!

2015 Model S owners, if you have the Autopilot sensors, will soon be getting the "summon" feature with the 7.1 release of software. Click the link below to see a new owner's video.

http://electrek.co/2016/01/09/model-s-drive-itself-tesla-updated-v7-1-with-summoninging-option/

Same videos, different link:

http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/09/tesla-model-s-summon-feature-live/

Update: I can personally attest that auto-summon works great! -Wilson H.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

First official group lunch!

We had our first group lunch on Jan. 8, 2016 at Old Chicago Restaurant and Taproom at Academy Blvd. and Austin Bluffs Pkwy in Colorado Springs. Given the bad weather, we had a great turnout. Thanks to Ed Post for taking the photos for us.



Friday, January 8, 2016

Supercharger Party!

One of the first events our group gathered for was the Tesla Colorado Springs Supercharger Party. We celebrated the "go live" event the first weekend the Supercharger was open. Steve Zimmerman took our group photo, and Tesla re-tweeted it. We had 13 Teslas in attendance, and had a rousing lunch at the downtown Old Chicago Taproom.

Tesla's Supercharger is a 215 N. Cascade, Colorado Springs, CO. $1 to park, charging is free.


Welcome to the Colorado Springs EV Club!

We promote the use of electric vehicles. Please visit our Calendar and Events Page for recent and future events!