Santa Monica AltCar Expo, Sept 30-Oct 1st

[SEGsby]

6th Annual 2011 Alternative Car Exposition

Friday September 30th & Saturday, October 1st.

10:00 - 5:00 pm

Santa Monica Civic Auditorium

http://altcarexpo.com/

[SEGsby]

Nissan clearly had the largest presence at the entire Expo, with Leafs inside the exhibit and scattered about in the public parking area. Most of them were privately owned, and not part of Nissan's Expo Crew. I asked.

Ford was there with their Transit Connect Van, and C-Max hybrid. But there was not a single Ford Focus Electric Vehicle in sight. Very disappointing, especially since California is one of the initial target markets for it, and we should be seeing SOMETHING from Ford about the first few units they're supposedly releasing end of this year. *sighs*

There were a few volts getting test drives, but most of the people seemed to be hovering around the Leaf area...

Saw Coda, Wheego Mitsubishi, and even an electric version of a Smart Car.

It was interesting to see Honda, Nissan, Ford, and Mercedes demoing and allowing test drives of their Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles.

A couple assorted CNG models are there, as well. And of course, no sign of Aptera again.

Thanks Paul!

Spent most of the time answering questions about the hands-free Segway, so I didn't get to go inside to see the main Exhibit Area or do any test drives. I'll try for that tomorrow...

[SEGsby]

Went back today, to go inside to see the Exhibit area.

Trex was there with their modular system and an off-road dune buggy chassis that looked more like military hardware than anything else.

The Mitsubishi "Salesman" was slumped against a wall in a chair, with his head leaning on his fist. Not many folks were showing much interest in the Purple Metalic iMieve...

There were a number of companies demoing L1 and L2 charging stations with a variety of key pads, credit card readers or RFDI scanners... During a demo I asked if someone took your charger out and plugged it into theirs, what would happen. Was told the charger would stop as soon as the connection was broken. He said this was good, as you didn't want folks using your money to pay for someone else's recharging. I then posed a situation were what if someone had tried it, and it didn't work on theirs, and then plugged it back into your car-- what would happen? He said the charger would not re-initiate the connection after it had been broken, and not reset or continue charging your vehicle. It would essentially just sit there, till you manually restarted it, on site. Communication (relationship & identity) between car and charger isn't that granular yet. GTK.

Everyone is still waiting for the US Level 3 standard to get approved, so they can build charging hardware to support it...

Again, Leafs and crowds abound where Nissan's products were. Never saw so many Leafs in one place before. An impressive show of available hardware that just put everyone else to shame, IMHO.

Toyota surprised me by showing their RAV4 EV. No one could test drive it, but they did have some information on the current specs, nearby. I grabbed one of the single page brochures, so I could pass that info along. Haven't really seen a lot of technical information on it yet...
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RAV4 PROTOTYPE PHASE ZERO

* Unique front fascia designed by the CALTY Newport Beach Studio.
* Acceleration similar to V6 Model.
* All-electric test range of 80-120 miles.
* 73.0 cu. ft. cargo space, equal to conventional RAV4.
* Accepts 110V or 220V charge (Wait, no level 3????)
* Battery Management System maintains performance in a wide range of climate conditions.
* 37 kWh (usable power) lithium-ion battery back.
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Will be interesting to see what actually makes it to market...