“Your mileage may vary!”- we all know how true these old familiar words to be. Is it the same with Electric Vehicles? Why? What can we do about it? Unlike gasoline, we can’t buy “premium” electricity. So how do we get the best range and performance from our EV?

This talk will explore behavioral and technical factors that affect EV performance, how to “drive green”, and how to get the most from our EVs.

Thursday Morning, June 20

8:00am - 9:30am

Free, No reservations required.

~ Slight Change of Venue ~

Saratoga Foothill Club

20399 Park Pl, Saratoga, CA

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

(Across street from church parking lot, East of Saratoga Federated Church)

Don Christian works as director of powertrain engineering at Coda Automotive, a battery EV startup in LA. He is responsible for development and integration of high voltage automotive drive train components & subsystems HW & SW. He has worked much of the last two years in Harbin, Chinese Siberia, at Coda’s body plant.

Don has authored 22 US and many foreign patents, and has presented a wide variety of technical seminars and publications. He is a senior member of IEEE, SAE, and a SME Fellow, and is member of the SAE J1772 conductive charging standards task force.

• Living Green: straw bale passive living approach
• Zero fossil fuel home, is it possible?
• Residential Nano PV solar farm in the heart of Silicon Valley
• The EV story: when buying EV, other than range, Is there anything else I should know

Waidy Lee has been closely paying attention to the environment. She built a passive solar, 'fossil free' house made out of straw bale, with a 25KW photovoltaic solar with power backup system, using *almost No* gas. She only has a cook top and a couple of gas burning stoves for use in emergency of long power outage. Recently, Waidy added a living roof to offset the fossil fuel the oil companies put into the environment. Her electric cars include 2 Rav4EV and a Tesla Model S and is part of the fossil-free effort.

Waidy is an energetic and motivated individual. Much of her experience has been within engineering organizations, today she desires the opportunity to be on the front lines, interacting with customers. Successful at many transitions in her career, she is confident her energy and passion is an asset. Waidy also has the advantage of the Chinese language (speaking several dialects). This is another reason for her move from engineering to a customer contact role.

Waidy Lee is on the Advisory Board Member for Science and Technology at Foothill College, Sustainable Silicon Valley, and she is Pacific Rim Advisor for Coulomb Technologies.

Read More

• Look at a solar PV project design
• How to Do It Yourself project
• Westinghouse Solar panels suitable for a home

Bert will describe a design of a PV system to be placed on a patio cover using Westinghouse Solar AC PV panels.

Bert McMahon is a Sr Test Engineer for Electronic Products. He has 10 years experience as Lead Test Engineer / Technical Program Manager developing manufacturing test specs and test station HW for consumer electronic products (Palm PDA, Palm Cell phone, HP TouchPad). He has experience working with Engineering for DFT Design-for-Test and experience working with Contract Manufacturers in training, technical support, and test station validation. Bert is NABCEP certified.

Read More (pdf)

• What are the alternatives?
• How should they be compared?
• What are the trade-offs?

The world of residential solar power is going through a transition from primarily a construction project to the purchase of a service, from the choice of products to the choice of financial alternatives. Homeowners no longer need expertise in components such as solar panels or inverters to have a reliable and appropriate system installed. But they do need to understand the different ways that have emerged to finance residential solar. Doug will survey the landscape of solar finance, and focus on what homeowners need to know to make informed decisions.

Doug McKenzie is on the Board of SunWork Renewable Energy Projects, a non-profit solar installer. SunWork's mission is to train volunteers to bring very low-cost solar to homes with low-energy use. SunWork has helped many volunteers join the solar industry.

Doug has worked for SolarTech, a non-profit focused on shrinking solar costs nationwide. His work at SolarTech included coaching displaced professionals and he is Principal at Aspirational Coaching. He spent over 15 years at Hewlett-Packard as a project and people manager. Prior to HP, he was a home-remodeler, newsletter editor and computer salesperson.

Read More (pdf)

Solar Finance Spreadsheet (xlsx)