National Plug In Day - Orange County, California

Thread to discuss the Orange County NPID event:

Orange County National Plug In Day

What: Join us on September 23rd in Mitsubishi of North America’s Cypress parking lot as Orange County celebrates the electrifying benefits of plug-in cars! Be part of the large gathering of drivers, EV advocates and electric vehicles assembled in Mitsubishi’s lot with limited level 1, level 2 and some fast charging provided on site.



Where: 6400 Katella Ave. Cypress, CA 90630

When: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm

Please RSVP at the official pluginday.org event page (and leave a note here)

We'll be there with our Glacier Pearl LEAF. Look for Animal somewhere on the car :lol:

Do you just park in the sun and chat with passers-by?

Or, is there anything scheduled, booths, demo drives, etc?

garygid said:

Do you just park in the sun and chat with passers-by?

Or, is there anything scheduled, booths, demo drives, etc?

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Yes, essentially. You park with other EV drivers, chat and share information and show off and explain your EV to other drivers and interested attendees who want to learn about EVs. There will be a presentation and then I believe that an informal drive-away to a restaurant in Seal Beach is planned.

I'll be there with my Blue Ocean 2011 SL, possibly with Mrs. Boomer.

garygid said:

Do you just park in the sun and chat with passers-by?

Or, is there anything scheduled, booths, demo drives, etc?

Click to expand...

The program so far is:

• Welcome by Local Event Captain, Linda Nicholes

• Short talk by Jim McCarthy - President EVAoSC

• Congresswoman Janice Hahn

• David Patterson, Chief Engineer Mobile Emissions, Mitsubishi

• Speech by Mayor Doug Bailey (or other city official)

• Award to O.C's Greenest Business Entity- Cal State Fullerton

Linda was originally trying to set this event up in Seal Beach, but that didn't work out. Luckily, Mitsubishi HQ did work out, so the event moved.

A little history. National Plug In Day was launched by Plug In America and Sierra Club last year. It was envisioned as an event that would be so widespread that local media would have to cover it, and national media would have to follow. The Los Angeles (Santa Monica) event is the flagship, and last year's parade got a lot of media attention (although we always want more):
YouTube videos
News hits

This year, Plug In America, Sierra Club, and the Electric Auto Association are partnering to promote the event. EV companies like Nissan are promoting as well. Last year at the OC event, I believe there was one Mitsubishi "i". This year, I understand there will be "i" Ride and Drives.

Last year's OC event was great. Linda (who really is over-extended) organized the event. She had a half-dozen or so volunteers who set up the sound system and helped guide traffic, etc.. If anyone wants to help, it would be appreciated.

Local news coverage of the OC event last year was pretty dismal. The OCRegister did a video piece that really seemed to miss the point of the event. If anyone gets approached by media this year, try to make some of the points listed in the National Plug In Day About page. The point is to show the cars are out there, the drivers are normal people who are having a lot of fun, and that EVs are for everyone.



Last year's event had a parade through some residential streets. Parades are difficult to arrange due to liability concerns (although some cities have been able arrange for insurance). The OC event will not have a proper parade this year, but Linda would like to have us end with a "casual drive-away" (essentially a parade, but as she says, "We do have to get out of the parking lot and drive away, right???" ) As Boomer said, the leader will guide us to River's End Restaurant at the end of 1st St in Seal Beach (nine miles) for dinner and socializing at sunset. Those of you who attended Doug Korthof's memorial will remember this place.

So far, according to the event listing page, OC looks like it's neck and neck with San Diego, Washington DC, and Silicon Valley for second place. We had at least 100 people at last year's so if you're planning on making it, please register there.

I'll post more as I hear it.

Oh yeah, and Linda would like to know how many are coming, so after officially registering, please shoot her an email at: [email protected]

Updated speaker list:

• Intro by MC Linda Nicholes, co-founder of Plug in America

• Dave Patterson - Mitsubishi Motors' Chief Engineer of Mobile Emissions

• State Senator Alan Lowenthal - Electric vehicle and clean air champion

• Jim McCarthy - President of the Electric Vehicle Association of Southern California

• Bob Siebert, Chair of Southern California's Sierra Club Conservation Committee

• Doug Bailey, Mayor of City of Cypress

• Doug Kind, Manager of Engineering and Sustainability at Cal State Fullerton
  (to receive Orange County Green Business Award for CSUF regarding the installation of a 1.16 MW Solar System and largest public charging infrastructure in OC)

96 people registered so far!

Thanks to everyone who came out. It was a hot day, but real fun.



Lots of cars coming and going. Mitsubishi was giving MIEV drives all day. And every one of Mitsubishi's charging stations, including the Eaton DCQ, was chugging away the whole time charging everyone's cars.

Big thanks to Mitsubishi and all their crew for hosting the event.

We had about 75 plug-in cars, about 25 of them LEAFs. LEAFs, Volts and MIEVs were by far the most common.

Saw mwalsh, boomer23 (Mrs. Boomer ), TonyWilliams and several other MNLers.

My biggest surprise today was how few PiPs came out. By the sales numbers alone, I would have expected at least 10, but I only spotted one.



This was just one of many simultaneous events today. The DC event had about 750 attendees! The Los Angeles event gave 300+ test drives. And rumors are that Elvis was spotted lounging in a Fisker in New York. So hopefully the nation noticed, and we changed some minds today.

richard said:

Saw mwalsh, boomer23 (Mrs. Boomer ), TonyWilliams and several other MNLers.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the coverage and pics, Richard.

(small correction, Mrs. Boomer was not in attendance. Hopefully she isn't reading this and wondering who was mistaken as my spouse. Just friendly chatting, dear.... Oops...)

Boomer23 said:

(small correction, Mrs. Boomer was not in attendance. Hopefully she isn't reading this and wondering who was mistaken as my spouse. Just friendly chatting, dear.... Oops...)

Click to expand...

:lol: My mistake.

richard said:

Boomer23 said:

(small correction, Mrs. Boomer was not in attendance. Hopefully she isn't reading this and wondering who was mistaken as my spouse. Just friendly chatting, dear.... Oops...)

Click to expand...

:lol: My mistake.

Click to expand...

No harm, no foul. :lol:

A couple of my pics from today in Cypress:

First a welcome to three newcomers: Honda Fit EV, Coda and a Fisker. Along with a PIP, a Smart EV and a couple of BMW ActiveEs, it's great to see new EVs showing up on the scene each year. Next year the new RAV and hopefully a couple more newcomers. Keep 'em coming.

The group picture is of some of our MNL friends who were in attendence: TonyWilliams, Richard, mwalsh, tbleakne, JPVLeaf (waving), 1051 and the Mrs and pooch, and EricH. Not pictured but very much in attendance: xtremeflyer, Garygid, LeafyD, Butch and Linda and Matt, whose MNL handle I've never learned and several others I didn't recognize but who were very much up to date with the happenings here.

Thanks to everybody for putting together a nice event! I drove 96.7 miles up, only 7.6 miles past LBW. But coming home, with much cooler temps, and I didn't make it. I'm charging at the Escondido Nissan dealer just 11 miles from my house at 1:34am.

It sure would be nice if my LEAF were less normal (and didn't have 10% missing on the 4 month old battery).

Thanks for posting the photos, Boomer.

Tony, sorry to hear you ended up short on your drive back. We really appreciated having you up here and I'm personally glad we got to chat a while.

Matt Coker of OCWeekly wrote up the event here:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/09/orange_county_national_plug-in.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We offered a bunch of photos for the article. Not too thrilled that he chose a set that made it look like there was only one person there :roll: We know better.

Directing cars for a while, I counted quite a few brand new plug-in drivers (who were obviously connecting with the community for the first time), and other gas cars full of families who were obviously coming to see what it was all about (and to do the ride-and-drives). For a while, it was one car coming in (with a family), and one car going out (ride and drive full of passengers). That was pretty cool.

Just two of the cars there:
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