Road trip: Meeting the New England Electric Auto Association

Earlier this month, our US Commerical Project Manager, Joe Stilin, took a trip from New York to Boston with an electric vehicle (of course). Along the way, he dropped into the New England Electric Auto Association’s monthly meet-up. He joins us to tell the story.

An electric road trip across New England

First off, how was your journey? Were charge points plentiful?

I rented a Tesla Model 3 (it’s a classic) and drove 450 miles from my home in New York to Boston.

Luckily, I didn’t struggle to find charge points on my journey and I was able to supercharge five times on the trip with sessions from 14 to 22 minutes long. The ev.energy app picked up every charge and gave me a full summary of each one in the app.

Tell us about the New England Electric Auto Association. Who are they?

It was great to meet the folks behind the association. They’ve been building their own EVs since the 60’s – so they’ve been doing this a long time and it’s clear they’re incredibly passionate about the adoption of electric vehicles.

Many of the NEEAA members I spoke to drive electric for environmental reasons. They’re interested in lower carbon charging and talked a lot about the future of America’s energy grid, with fairer and more stable management of power demand.

Let’s jump in. What vehicles did you see? Any hacks?

Of course, Teslas made an appearance and I was in one myself, but I saw some awesomely creative vehicles too.

Dave, in the photo below, had the most creative vehicle. His current ride is a Chevy truck with two Nissan Leaf batteries under the hood. I was quite impressed with his efforts, but certainly won’t be trying to build my own at home.

It was also great to see quite a few people with the ev.energy app. They were quite excited about the ability to make EV charging greener and more affordable.

Chris, who drives a Tesla Model 3, was happy to see all of his at-home and on-the-go charging sessions had been tracked directly in the app. This was music to my ears, as our product team have been working on this feature recently. They’ve made it so public charges show up in the app a lot faster.

Dave, who I mentioned earlier, is excited about the possibilities that a smarter energy grid will allow. He wants to buy and sell energy back to the grid with his vehicle and household battery.

Where will you be road-tripping to next?

I’ll certainly be visiting my friends at New England Electric Auto Association again! While I was there, there was talk about the record for shortest charge time to drive across the United States recently being broken: 2 hours and 18 minutes. Hopefully there’s room for a US-wide road trip in the budget soon, if I ask nicely.

Become a driver of change. Get the ev.energy app on the Apple App Store or Google Play store for cheaper, greener charging.

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