SoCal LEAF & EV Gathering, Y7 - Finished - 19 Aug 2017

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garygid

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
12,469
Location
Laguna Hills, Orange Co, CA
Our Seventh Year of Gatherings finished here.

A link to our Eighth Year thread: http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=24445

Our LEAF group has become an extended family, with some evolving
with the times, now arriving in other EVs, including Rav4EV, Tesla S,
Tesla X, BMW i3, and occasionally an iMev or Coda.
As with any good family, we welcome and enjoy this "growing up",
since it enriches the group, and provides us all with a better
perspective of the future. So, the LEAF title for the Gathering
evolved to "LEAF & EV" until we think of something better.

Join us for a Saturday morning breakfast buffet at Hometown Buffet, the Golden
Corral, or some other location (see below), ... or for some other special event.

Nominally, we Gather from about 8:00 until about 11:00 AM, and some will arrive
at about 8:00 and some may stay later, if there is enough interest. Some come
for just a while, but have to leave early because they have a "real" life. :D

I usually try to arrive by 8:00, and I am usually among the last to leave.
HTB opens for Breakfast at 8:00, and transitions to their Lunch menu at about 11:00.

Usually, we LEAF/EV-Gather on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month,
but that is often modified to fit the holidays or other events in the month.
Occasionally we have Local Clusters for special events (**) at different locations.

NOTE: The Hometown Buffet in Cerritos has been closed.
Our new location is the Golden Corral in the City of Industry (see address below).


------ 85th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #85a: 9 Sep 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #85b: 23 Sep 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

End of 7th year of Gatherings

------ 84th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #84a: 5 Aug 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #84b: 19 Aug 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 83rd month Gatherings ------
Gathering #83a: 8 Jul 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #83b: 22 Jul 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 82nd month Gatherings ------
Gathering #82a: 10 Jun 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #82b: 24 Jun 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 81st month Gatherings ------
Gathering #81a: 13 May 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #81b: 27 May 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 80th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #80a: 8 Apr 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #80b: 29 Apr 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 79th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #79a: 4 Mar 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #79b: 18 Mar 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 78th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #78a: 4 Feb 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #78b: 18 Feb 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 77th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #77a: 7 Jan 2017 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #77b: 21 Jan 2017 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 76th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #76a: 3 Dec 2016 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #76b: 17 Dec 2016 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 75th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #75a: 5 Nov 2016 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #75b: 19 Nov 2016 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 74th month Gatherings ------
Gathering #74a: 8 Oct 2016 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #74b: 22 Oct 2016 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

------ 73rd month Gatherings ------
Gathering #73a: 10 Sep 2016 at Golden Corral in City of Industry for breakfast.
Gathering #73b: 24 Sep 2016 at the HTB on 17th in Santa Ana for breakfast.

----- Started our Seventh Year of EV Gatherings -----

----- Sixth Year of Gatherings ------
See our Sixth Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=20453

----- Fifth Year of Gatherings ------
See our Fifth Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=17823

----- Fourth Year of Gatherings ------
See our Fourth Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=14125

------ Third Year of Gatherings ------
See our Third Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=9695

------ Second Year of Gatherings ------
See our Second Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=5418

------ First Year of Gatherings ------
See our First Year thread: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1148

------------ Locations -------------

Golden Corral in City of Industry
17635 Castleton St 
City of Industry, CA 91748
Phone: (626) 839-8188

This GC is located just South of the 60 freeway, 4 miles West of the 57 freeway,
about half way between the S. Azusa Ave exit on the West and the Fullerton Rd
exit on the East.  They open at 7:30 for breakfast on Saturday.

From south Orange County, go North on I-5, then North on 57,
and then about 4 miles West on the 60 freeway.

Hometown Buffet on 17th in Santa Ana:
Located just 2 blocks East of I-5 on 17th street in Santa Ana
1008 EAST 17TH STREET
SANTA ANA, CA 92701
Phone: (714) 541-3020
Their "breakfast" hours are from 8:00 until 11:00 (when "lunch" begins").
I usually plan to arrive about 8:00, and stay until at least 11:00.

------------- Misc ------------------
As always, Suggestions Welcome
Thanks everyone for your support and help.
 
The first Gathering of our 7th year will be on September 10th, 2016,
to avoid the Labor Day weekend. We will Gather at the Golden Corral
in the City of Industry, just South of freeway 60, about 4 miles East of
freeway 57. I plan to be there shortly before 8 AM, for breakfast.

Cheers, and see you there, Gary
 
We Gather one week from this coming Saturday at the Golden Corral in
the City of Industry. I plan to be there shortly before 8:00 AM, but they
open for breakfast at 7:30 ... we have been sitting in the meeting/group
room, since we can turn the music off in that room.

This sill be the first EV Gathering of our seventh year.
CU there, Gary
 
Remember this Special Event between our Gatherings in September:

National Drive Electric Week Event - Long Beach
https://driveelectricweek.org/event.php?eventid=587

September 17, 2016
Time: 10-1
Location: Houghton Park
6301 Myrtle Ave
Long Beach, CA 90805
 
Tom, thanks for the video of alternative transportation vehicle power-up sequence.

Our next EV Gathering is one week from today, Sep 10th, at the Golden Corral in
the City of Industry. I got my MS85 back 10 days ago, and it is sure nice to drive it again.

Planning to see you all there, Gary
 
The first EV Gathering of our 7th year is in roughly 2.5 days, on this coming Saturday, at the GC.

Apparently some folks might go to Diamond Bar after the GT ... oops, burp ... GC. :lol:
 
I will be there at GC tomorrow with my MS with its new charger replaced under warranty. Less than 4K miles left on my original comprehensive warranty, planning to buy extended warranty just before I reach 50K miles. Two repairs in last 6 months total about $3K in cost if no warranty. Unused portion of extended warranty is refunded upon trade-in.
 
Another good turnout at GC.

After breakfast, some of us, including MarkZ, Eugene, 91040, LeafyD, Boomer23, and Jason and his wife went over to Plugin Day event at South Coast AQMD in Diamond Bar.

Several of these folks joined me to hear the talks at 2PM.

The first was by Lisa M. who manages EV programs for SCAQMD. She gives a report every year. This year they have a program subsidizing installation of about 100 Fast DC chargers, dual CHAdeMO and CCS. The first one has gone live in Calabasas. They are being networked by GreenLots. AQMD is partnering with Greenlots on the expansion of their own charging installation, moving towards 100 charge plugs.

They have a new rebate program targeted towards limited-income folks. If you qualify, they will pay you up to $9.5K turn in your ICE and buy a plug-in hybrid or all-electric.

They also have rebates to help pay the cost of buying and installing level 2 in your garage. Several hundred $ per rebate.

A lady representing Greenlots spoke next. They are offering all kinds of fancy "back office" software to manage the host's' demand charges. Their software is Open Source, so it should survive any disruption, including Greenlots shutting down. They could be a better alternative to Chargepoint.

A man from Transpower spoke last. They have contracts to build several all-electric big-rig trucks, one of which they had on display. 120 kWh batteries, moving towards 150 kWh packs. They are testing the trucks at the ports for short-haul usage where minimizing pollution is a priority.
They are doing electric full-sized school buses as well. They propose to use do V2G with the buses while they are idle in the middle of the day, and during the summer.
 
Even for many of us on this thread who do not haver Autopilot or a Tesla, News from yesterday on upgrade of radar and Autopilot for those cars that have it is very interesting from engineering perspective.

Tesla blog post

https://www.tesla.com/blog/upgrading-autopilot-seeing-world-radar

Press conference transcript:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...3e8NB0pq3fncCgpEPViR0A&bvm=bv.132479545,d.amc

In next firmware release in a week or two, radar will be enabled as primary, camera secondary. Also using cloud feedback from cars on same road. Too much to summarize. The transcript is is several parts.

The radar has good range resolution, but no angular resolution. It updates 10 times per second, and comparing multiple frames helps raise confidence.

During Q&A, Musk says car with Autosteer On will be safer than having it off, because car will be able to apply emergency braking earlier, because it knows during Atutosteer about trajectories around curves. If this sounds unclear, please read the transcript.
 
We had 13 at our last meeting, including 4 women and 9 men.
I was getting tired, so I left relatively early, around 11, and made
it home safely ... used steering and speed assist most of the way.
My Heidi "puppy" was really glad to see me.

Next time at GC I need to remember to bring some peanut butter.
Thanks, everyone, for being there.
Hopefully I will be able to get more sleep before our next Gathering.
Cheers, Gary
 
From my young years, we always used peanut butter instead of butter on
pancakes, waffles, toast, and such. HTB usually has it out, in some form.
However, I will probably bring a little jar, instead of the Costco size.

On the 17th, I still hope to go to the NDEW event in Long Beach (an inland park).

On the 24th, I need to leave early from HTB in Santa Ana, perhaps 11 AM, to
go to San Diego for a early afternoon celebration with friends.

See you ... somewhere, sometime, I hope.
 
Reminder:
The NDEW Event in Long Beach is tomorrow from 10 to 1, at a park
several miles almost due West of our old Cerritos Hometown Buffet.

Hopefully, I will be there with a functional body and Tesla.
Cheers, Gary
 
A few of us (LeafyD, Hilda and I) went to the Goleta Plug in Event yesterday! What an amazing day, drive and group up there! So nice to get away from the "L.A." scene.

A great group of EV's and owners showed up! Afterwards we drove to the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens and spent the rest of the day there!

All in all, 201mi round trip and nice cool weather! ;)

http://morenews2.newspress.com/edaily/b/09192016.jpg
 
Tony, it will be nice to see you.

Just 3 days and 31 minutes before our next gathering.
See you all there.
The owner of the Santa Ana HTB and his youngest son might join us.
 
Boomer and I got to see and ride in the Bolt. A auto magazine writer and his photo crew had a pre-production Bolt to drive for the weekend. They were especially interested in how those of us who have reserved Tesla Model 3s found the Bolt.

Better interior than Volt, comfortable rear seats with good leg room, more than in LEAF. "leather" on higher trim felt like vinyl, definitely not near luxury quality. Biggest disappointment for me was no GPS even with higher trim. Instead the good high-quality central display had a "projection" mode that could display the GPS map from your smart phone.

Best features of car: real good torque, better than LEAF, and real good Regen. The Regen was also adjustable.

Reporter asked for a vote as to how many folks who had reserved a Model 3 (almost all 20 something present had), would now consider a Bolt after seeing it. Only one hand went up. Boomer said he might convert on of his two Model 3 reservations to a Bolt, but not his other one.

Reporter understood that one of the biggest disadvantages of the Bolt was its very limited fast charging network vs Supercharger network. Another was the lack of over-the-air software updates. He said the car was capable of over-the-air updates, but he doubted whether GM would use it because that would anger their dealers who want excuses to charge fees. Boomer said he had that problem with his i3, where BMW had good updates, but his dealer would refuse to install them unless he could find something wrong with the car, because they wouldn't deal with the car without being reimbursed by BMW.

NYTimes ran a story a week ago that claimed the Bolt was a "Model 3 killer" and that giant GM was going to crush Tesla. Based upon what I saw, this is Not going to happen. GM is producing the Bolt on one of their many regular assembly lines, mixed in with ICE cars, which reduces risk and allows them to scale production up or down to match demand. This reduces risk, but it also reduces production efficiency. Tesla, used to high risk, will produce the Model 3 with a highly automated assembly line where "humans are banned." I think we will get more car value the Tesla way.

It would be great if GM produces and sells 100K Bolts next year, which would further the EV revolution without seriously impacting Tesla or Model 3 sales.
 
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