[Robotgroup] Electric Car?

[Derek Bridges]

The Austin EV group (officially the Austin Area Electric Automobile 
Association) will have its next regular meeting on Saturday September 9 
at 2:30 although the location is still TBD. To find out where it will be 
held, you can keep an eye on the events calendar at   
http://www.austinev.org/meetings/index.html   
You can sign up for either the discussion list (lots of activity 
lately)or just the announcements list at
 http://www.austinev.org/evinfo/local/mailinglist.html
The next big event will be showing cars at the annual Renewable Energy 
Fair in Fredericksburg in late September.
The group has a few electric conversions currently on the road and three 
more in progress. We have been having a lot of weekend work sessions in 
members' garages lately.

The industry is moving pretty fast. The big players will be putting out 
lots more regular hybrids next year and they will probably be releasing 
some sort of Plug-In hybrids within a few years. There are numerous 
smaller outfits selling parts and systems for pure Battery Electric 
Vehicles but the overall picture for BEVs still looks pretty amorphous 
to me. A a good place to start research would be 1) Go to one of the 
regular meetings and 2) Keep up with news postings on the AustinEV home 
page. Some of the folks at the meetings will share their knowledge of 
EVs till your ears are numb.

Good Luck
Derek Bridges

 >Clendon wrote in response to Vern:
 >
 >Hi Vern, you want Austin EV. www.austinev.org
 >From what I can make out by lurking on their mail list, they are 
largely hobbyists/advocates.
 >Apparently a good number of them have an electric vehicle, and there 
is an "open garage"
 >just about every weekend where members gather to help or learn about 
the progress of a particular vehicle.
 >
 >>From: Vern Graner <vern at txis.com>
 >>Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 11:13:21 PM
 >>Subject: [Robotgroup] Electric Car?
 >>
 >>Ok, so if I were interested in purchasing an electric car (and I have
 >>been for some time) where should I begin researching?
 >>I know there's an EV club in Austin, but I don't know anything about
 >>them.. Do they help build cars? convert them? sell them?
 >>
 >>Vern