North Texas Electric Auto Association

Monthly NTEAA Meeting

Date : Saturday, November 5th, 2011

Time : 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (MakerSpace will stay open until people stop coming)

Location : Makerspace

Address : 2995 Ladybird Lane Dallas, TX 75229 (off Monroe and Walnut Hill)

Website : http://dallasmakerspace.org/blog/

All monthly meetings are free to attend and open to the public.

We moved our monthly meeting to a new date and time to accommodate the open house for Dallas Makerspace.   Dallas Makerspace is a membership based, not-for-profit, shared community workshop and laboratory, commonly known as a hackerspace.   They are an organized group of local artists, engineers, makers, creators, and thinkers who work together to collect tools and resources for their membership, whom could not otherwise afford, store, or use them individually.  They use these resources to collaborate on individual and community projects in order to promote science and technology, while working and experimenting on innovative ideas to encourage learning within our community.

Thanks to everyone that came Saturday for the Makerspace event.  Great turnout for NTEAA and lots of great interest in the cars. We had 4 cars, Rons Leaf, Mike’s Ford pickup, Mark’s NMG and Neal’s VW Golf.  The Makerspace folks had a great event, lots of things going on from DNA, robotics, photography, laser cutters, CNC machines, 3D Printers, craft projects, Metal and Wood shop stuff, and even R2-D2 showed up!.   A nice new big space for some great projects.  There’s a rumor that there might be an EV there to work on….. Let’s see if that can happen, maybe our first club car build?  It was a great day and a lot to learn here.  Thanks again to all who came out.

If you got any pictures that we could post, please send them to the officer email (nteaa dot org at gmail dot com).

Monthly NTEAA Meeting at Irving Main Street Festival

Date : Saturday, September 10th, 2011

Time : 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Location : Irving Main Street Festival

Address : Heritage Park  217 S. Main St, Irving Tx 75060

Website : http://www.manifoldsonmain.org/

We had our monthly meeting at the Irving Main Street Festival.  We had 4 electric cars, which most was a Nissan Leaf.  Several people thought that we were a Nissan representatives because they were mostly Nissan Leafs there.  But it was a good turn out for NTEAA members and since it was a Festival, there were a lot of people walking by and checking out the EVs.  Got to meet several very interesting people.  We had a quick 20 minute monthly meeting talking about the upcoming events in Sept and Oct.   Details of those events will be sent out to the NTEAA Yahoo Group.  While we were there we go several good questions about the cars and I (Jared) think several people were ready to buy the cars.  It turned out to be a great weather and not too hot to stay out side.  There was a lot of things to do around the Festival and the car show had a ton of entries.  While we were there at the event I (Jared) pointed out to the group that the light polls in that area were all Solar Powered.  That was very cool to see that type of technology being used by the city of Irving.  We hope a lot of you that had some great questions come out to another monthly meeting where we can have a more one on one experience and actually take the cars for a test spin.

Electric Car Show and Monthly NTEAA Meeting

Date : Saturday, August 6th, 2011

Time : 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Location : Bankston Nissan of Dallas

Address : 4707 Lyndon B Johnson Freeway  Dallas, TX 75244

We had our monthly meeting on the 1st Saturday of the month this time and we still had a good turn out at Bankston Nissan.  Bankston Nissan provided us all with some great BBQ lunch.  They had both Nissan Leaf’s and a GM Volt there at this monthly meeting.  We also had several of our Electric Car Conversions there.

We were able to use Bankston’s meeting room so we could stay out of the 100 degree heat.  We tried to get the movie “What is an Electric Car” to play in the TV that was in the room but it was not working.  So we will have to schedule another time to watch that movie.

So we just had our normal monthly meeting inside.  Went around the room introducing our selves, doing show and tell and hearing about projects people were working on like Bob’s Fiero Conversion and peoples experiences with the Nissan Leaf.  We even talked about some benefits to Leaf owners that people were seeing by charging on Level 1 chargers in the Texas heat (since it had been hitting 100 degrees for the past 30 days).  The conclusion was that the Level 2 charger was creating too much heat in an already high temperature environment (charging in the sun in a parking lot or even a hot garage) and not quite leaving the batteries 100 percent charged.  Even a Nissan Tech told one of our members to use the Level 1 charger in high heat conditions.  Anyways, we had some great discussions about the electric car and some ideas for conversions.  Afterwards we went out side and ate some great BBQ that was provided by Bankston Nissan and prepared by TX TN Custom Bar-B-Q.

Then we just hovered around the Electric Cars, did test drives, checking out some of the custom work that Mike H. has done on his truck and just generally having fun around the electric vehicles.

As usual charging was provided by Bankston Nissan and we had members taking advantage of that opportunity.

Bankston has been gracious enough to provide us with their amenities and we think they have a great location.  Thanks again Bankston Nissan.

Monthly NTEAA Meeting

Date : Saturday, July 9th, 2011

Time : 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Location : Green Spot Market and Fuels

Address : 702 N. Buckner Blvd., Dallas, TX 75218

All monthly meetings are free to attend and open to the public.

On July 9^th  we had the rare opportunity to christen a new pair of Blink charge stations at the Green Spot in East Dallas. This was among 5 new stations that just went on-line in the DFW area from Blink and Ecotality.

Close to White Rock Lake, the Green Spot has been a local pioneer in alternative energy and healthy living. They are one of the few places in town that offers Bio-Diesel. Their store offers healthy snacks, drinks and a variety of locally produced products.

The White Rock Local Market, we attended, is a bi-monthly outdoor event designed to promote local artist and food producers from around the North Texas area.

Dave Aasheim was there from Blink with his Chevy Volt to answer questions about their charging network and the Ecotality EV Project program. The EV Project  is a federal government funding intuitive to create new charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs) across the US. You can learn more, suggest charge station locations and sign up for your own Blink network access card at ecotality.com. The Blink system access is currently free.

Norris Lauer brought over his Eclipse and Mike Barkley drove down with the modified plug in Prius. Neal Farris brought his VW Golf to round out the conversions. We had two white Nissan Leafs belonging to members Paul Shaffer and Ron Swanson.

There were lots of really interested people with great questions. Once again the demographic of the East Dallas area makes for an eclectic crowd with many varied interest, including EVs. People are really talking about how an EV would work for them. It is such a refreshing change to hear about where the EV is going rather than wondering when it will get here!

With all the activity at the Green Spot we held our own with individuals and whole families looking at the cars with great interest. There was one family that I saw talking to Norris, I made the comment that the wife and kids could go look at the other things at the Market and the mom said to me that they all wanted to see how an electric car works. Wow!

As always we had a great showing and appreciate the support of the folks at the Green Spot. You can stop by and pick up a charge for free, even if you don’t have a Blink card, the staff will turn on the station. And of course don’t forget to recharge yourself with a drink or snack.

By Neal Farris

Monthly NTEAA Meeting

Date : Saturday, June 11th, 2011

Time : 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Location : REI / Bankston Nissan

Address : 4515 LBJ Fwy, Dallas, TX 75244 Map It

Website : http://www.rei.com/stores/45

Website : http://www.bankstonnissan.com/

Website : https://www.evgonetwork.com/

The Future of Transportation

Our June meeting was held at REI with the North Texas Renewable Energy Group. We also had our first Leaf reunion at Bankston Nissan, which is just down the street from REI. This helped to bring out one of the biggest groups we have had in some time. A show of hands had our group evenly split on those who came for NTREG and NTEAA.  Thanks to NTREG for inviting us, and for hosting the REI meeting.

Ron Swanson and Neal Farris presented the program “ Future of Transportation”. This presentation was originally created by member Paul Shaffer. Ron and Neal gave the same presentation at the Living Green event in Plano. This audience was very eager to hear the facts and information about different electric vehicles past, present and future.   Ron has posted this program on the website if anyone would like to have a copy (of course it does not include the informational and humorous ranting of Ron and yours truly).

The real party started when we moved from REI to Bankston Nissan to see the Leafs and other conversion cars that were on display. By the end of the day we had 5 Leafs, Jared’s Fiero, Mike’s plug-in Prius and Mark’s NMG.

The guys and gals at Bankston were great host. A very special thanks goes to Caroline Finley at Bankston for helping to arranging the event.  They gave us upfront parking by the charge stations and even had a catered lunch for all who came. Lots of new faces were there as well as half a dozen folks who are expecting their new Leafs to arrive soon.

Jason Buckland was there from EVGO to help answer questions and lend support for those who had questions about vehicle charging and cost. He also supplied much needed shade from the summer sun with his new EVGO tent!

The Leafs included Neal’s red SL, Paul’s white SV, and Ron’s White SL ETEC with the quick charge port. We had another red and a late arrival of a blue. The ocean blue was driven my new member Jim Hosch. He had just taken delivery that week.

I had more people to talk to than I could handle, thank goodness we had 4 cars there for everyone to see. It was great to feel the excitement of the soon to be owners finally getting to have a hands on with the Leaf. Of course seeing the other conversions there gave them an opportunity to see from where these cars have come and the complex features hidden by a production car.

This was one of those events that made me feel we had “taken it to the street” and spent some time with a great group of real people that are interested in alternative transportation and the possibilities that it holds for all of us. Once that everyone sees that EVs are not some type of experimental vehicle and realize that these cars are viable, we will see many new converts. I am surprised myself how great the Leaf has been to drive, as nice, if not nicer, than any car I have driven.

Now if my wife would just let me drive the darn thing!

Author Neal F.

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Monthly NTEAA Meeting

Date : Saturday, May 14th, 2011

Time : 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Location : West Irving Public Library

Address : 4444 W. Rochelle Rd., Irving, TX  75062

All monthly meetings are free to attend and open to the public.

We had our monthly meeting at the West Irving Public Library this month.  Its one thing to see pictures and their online videos of the building but seeing it in person makes it really impressive.  As soon as you pull up into their driveway you can see the huge solar array with parking underneaths them.

So you get covered parking, which is really nice but even better is they have 110 volt outlets on every pole.  So electric cars can plug in while visiting the library, so that is really awesome.  When you walk to the building you can see the landscape is well though out using native Texas plants that are use to the dryer weather so that they are very drought tolerant.

Then when you get inside you see it is a state of the art building with lots of features and amenities.  I gotta tell you, a lot of through and design was put into this projects to make it very useful, green and zero carbon foot print on their power.  So it is a building that you should check out some time.

Norris, you can't take it home with you. We see you back there.

We had 9 or 10 people show up along with a Irving City Councilmen.  We had several discussions going on and not very one was part of each discussion.  We heard from the Richardson school doing another Electrothon and entering a new vehicle into the challenge.  He brought pictures showing the new EV, they expect to have it done in the next few weeks.  It was great to get an update on what the Richardson School is working on.   (if you have a picture of the EV, please send it to the NTEAA officers so it can be posted here)    We also discussed the Lake Wood Event that was happening the next day and made sure everyone knew where and when to meet and how many vehicles were going to be able to make it.  We ran into a hand full of new people in passing by hearing what we were talking about at the library and asked some questions.  We asked for a quick tour and info of the library while we were there so one of the librarians gave us a tour and told us a lot about the library.  There were a lot of people there at the library as we were walking around trying to keep quite but asking questions.  Afterwards we went out to the EVs under the solar panel arrays and had a few more random discussions and ran into a few more people asking questions.

Monthly NTEAA Meeting

Date : Saturday, April 9th, 2011

Time : 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Location : Half Price Books at Northwest Hwy in Dallas

Address : 5803 E. Northwest Hwy. Dallas, TX 75231

Website : http://hpb.com/001.html

All monthly meetings are free to attend and open to the public.

We met under the Half Price Books for a while showing off the cars.  We had a lot of passer byers checking out the cars asking questions.  Neal brought his brand new Nissan Leaf, that was the surprise that Neal gave away early.  I (Jared) brought my Fiero, Mike B. brought his plug in Prius, and Mark brought his NMG.

We eventually went inside of Half Price Book and had our monthly meeting.  We heard from Neal and Paul about the NRG launch event of their eVgo Charging Station.  We passed around Neal’s phone to look at pictures, they are posted up on this website.  It sounds like NRG’s event was a big success.

We worked out details for the Plano Living Green Expo and the Texoma Earth Day Festival.  I (Jared) brought print outs of the layout for the Plano event to show everyone.  The layout looks like we will be right in the center of the parking lot where all of the action will be at.  We will be setting up between 7 and 7:30 AM at the Plano Event.  Mike didn’t have enough details about the Texoma event so the setup time will have to be figured out.

We talked to some new people that showed up, but one in particular we talked more about.  He runs his own landscaping company and he brought up the idea of doing all electric on the equipment.  We discussed a few electric riding lawnmower options and mobile dump charing capabilities.  He already has an electric trike that he uses to get new business and he was telling us about how he has to swap his batteries to make it last all day.  It sounded like he was a great candidate for an electric work truck and work tools to mow with.  Doesn’t that sound like a business you would want to hire!  You can’t ever mow the lawn with a gasoline mower and not smell like gasoline and exhaust.  I hope he will come to more meetings and maybe we can sit down and work out on some calculations and plans.

For the last part of the meeting we discussed officer elections.  No one sent any emails for people interested in running for office.   So it was decided to keep the officer positions the same for the most part.  Paul would like for someone else to be the Secretary for our group so we will be looking for someone to fill that position.

I (Jared) also updated the group on Joel’s progress on his Electric Train that he has been updating this year.  He has the frames of the new carts welded and made the majority of the wood side covers.  He still has lots to do, so if you would like to volunteer you can get a hold of him by email or phone.  His contact info is on his website.  While I was there, he told me about his plans to get into some parades this year like when we were in the Jaycee Parade a few years ago.  He would like to get into a few parades putting his train on a low trailer and having a few kids rid in the newly designed carts.  We thought it would be a neat idea for us (NTEAA) as well to be in the parades with the electric train, maybe even try to get one of the electric trucks to pull the electric train trailer.  So we need some help finding and coordinating some parades, if you know how to get us (NTEAA) into some parades this year please contact the NTEAA Officers.

Mike B. still has lots of the NTEAA patches.  A lot of people who ordered the patches still hasn’t picked up them.  He needs to have people pick these up, he has a list of who wanted them and how many they requested.  He has extra over the order amount for sale.  I believe that Mike B. said they are $3 for 1 or $5 for 2.  Please get a hold of Mike if you want to buy some.

After our meeting we went back outside and we talked to more people about the cars.  Half Price Books location always brings in a lot of people to see the cars.  A lot of people were stopping by to take pictures of the first Nissan Leaf in the DFW area.  So the Leaf was a big hit at Half Price Books, unfortunately the level 2 Coulomb charger didn’t work.  But because the Leaf has such a large range it wasn’t needed, it was just fun to park and charge the Leaf.    Doesn’t really speak well for the Coulomb charger…. to our knowledge this would have been the first time it would have been used and it didn’t work.  Mike was plugged into the level 1 charger and it was working so at least one of the charge ports were working.

Charge Point by Coulomb Technologies

North Texas Electric Auto Association held the March meeting at Half Price Books at Northwest Highway in Dallas. There was 7 people in attendance.

Before the meeting Ron Salsini announced he is selling his Fiero Conversion.  The car has the motor and adapter plate mounted but no controller or batteries.  He is asking a very reasonable price of $2500.

Bob Pflughoft was a new guest and he was interested in converting a vehicle.  Neil Farris and Michael Harris drove their conversions so we had two fine examples to show Bob after the meeting.

During the meeting we discussed the presentation given to UNT last month during engineers week.  Although the turn out was disappointing, we now have a presentation to use at our upcoming events.  The presentation is on the yahoo group site.  Neil reported on the North Texas Council of Governments EV infrastructure meeting.  He reported that the council is enthusiastic about getting the infrastructure going.  Signage was discussed with the probable conclusion of using the same signage as Austin.  Neil reported that an EVGo representative was there and gave a presentation on their system.  There was also a representative from a startup EV maker for commercial vehicles using a sodium sulfur battery with a range of 100 miles.  We also discussed the upcoming events.  The Plano and Sherman events are both on April 16th.  There is also a car show for the North Texas food bank on the 16th at Renner and 75 in Richardson.  Neil, David and Jared have committed to having vehicles at the Plano event with Norris’s Eclipse also as a possibility.

We also discussed an invitation to Landmark Bank in Denison TX.  They have a solar “tree” that is connected to the grid and on March 28th, they will have an electric vehicle charger.

Michael McCabe of EVGo charging had requested email information on our members in order to invite them to the installation of the first charge in the Dallas area.  Although we will not provide him with our members email addresses, we will contact him to find out more about the event in early April and report that back to our group.  The April meeting was asked about and I offered that we usually don’t have a meeting in April with the events acting as a meeting.  Neil’s daughter’s school is interested in building an EV.  This is an all girl school in Dallas, TX.  So we can see that EVs aren’t just for guys.  Neil and Michael gave rides in the parking lot after the meeting.

Sincerly,
Paul
Secretary of NTEAA

Monthly NTEAA Meeting

Date : Saturday, February 12th, 2011

Time : 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Location : EV Tech in Addison

Address : 4310 Wiley Post Rd # 217, Addison, TX 75001

This months meeting was a smaller head count than normal (12 people) but none the less we enjoyed seeing new faces and got some good questions asked.  This months meeting was a very open discussion about many aspects of the Electric Cars.  A lot of it was dealing with the electric grid and a lot of “what if’s”.  We covered a lot of info from the electric generators,  grids current capabilities, transformers in neighborhoods and housing power panels.  Eventually we broke out into smaller groups and Paul gave his presentation off of his laptop which will be the presentation for the UNT Engineer’s Week in Denton, TX later this month.  That was the first run through his presentation, I hope you all learned a lot from it.  It will eventually be posted to our Yahoo Group file section.   We talked about buying electric cars and EV Tradin Post was brought up as a good source to pick up an Electric Vehicle.  That is a place that individuals can post their EVs for sale.  Later on, everyone went to the parking lot and checked out Neal’s EV.  After that Doug took us to EV Tech’s work shop and showed us some of their chargers and EV Bikes.  We still need to figure out where our next months meeting will be located at.  We will post that as soon as that is figured out.

Monthly NTEAA Meeting

Date : Saturday, January 8th, 2011

Time : 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Location : Half Price Books in Dallas off of North West Highway

Address : 5803 E. Northwest Hwy. Dallas, TX 75231

Website : http://hpb.com/001.html

All monthly meetings are free to attend and open to the public.

We had our monthly meeting at Half Price Books today.  They were generous enough to let us use their community room and their charging station.  Their charging station is a Level 1 (110 Volt) and Level 2 (220 Volt) by Coulomb Technologies.

Charge Point by Coulomb Technologies

We started our monthly meeting a little after 10:00 AM.  We talked about the extra NTEAA Patches that are still available.  If you are interested in getting some, contact Mike Barkley at koibuff@yahoo.com.  He is selling them for $3.45 a piece.  These are nicely made and can be sewn onto hats, jackets, shirts, etc.  Just check out the picture to see how great they turned out.

We also discussed the Nissan Leaf Test Drives in Irving, TX next weened (1/14 – 1/16  7AM – 5PM).  Several of use will be going to this event.  The website to register is www.drivenissanleaf.com, you don’t have to register but your wait time should be significantly shorter if you do.  Ron went to the test drive in Austin and said it is a good presentation where they show you details of the car and have a break away of the car.  Plus you get to drive an actual Nissan Leaf.  So if your interested in checking that car in person, be sure to make some time next weekend to make it to their event.

We also discussed our next months meeting.  We are planning on it being at EV Tech in Addison, TX.  We still need to make the final plans for that meeting but that is the plan right now.  We also talked about the UNT Presentation at the end of February for Engineer’s Week.  Neal plans on sending Paul pictures of his conversion that he is going to throw into a presentation for that event.  Mike H. brought up a good idea for our group.  He just bought a new charger for his EV Truck and he was asking about possibly coming up with a standard plug for our group so that everyone could recharge at any NTEAA place.  I (Jared) think this idea has some merit so we will bring this up again for next months meeting to discuss further.

After the meeting we adjourned to the parking lot to look at the EVs and the charging station and talk to the people gathered around the cars.  Once Mark brought his Meyers Motors NGM (Corbin Sparrow), it really brought a crowd like usual.

We had 4 EVs at our meeting this month.  I (Jared) brought my Fiero, Neil brought his Golf, Mark had his NMG, and Mike H. was finally able to bring his Ford Ranger EV.  Here is a few pictures of Mike’s Ranger.

Half Price Books is at a great location and gets a lot of attention!  We look forward to having more meetings at this location.  We’ll try to put this location into our normal rotation of meeting locations.