Solar Taxi and Three Rivers EVA

Cheers Rolf and GoldiEV,

Below a quick up date after the Run Around Lake Ontario ... visiting EVCouncil of Ottawa Members in Montreal and Ottawa and not being able to link up with EVSociety - Toronto nor Durham EVA ... but making it this AM to link up with the SolarTaxi Gang and more:

Cheers Jonathan & Three Rivers EVA'rs -

After a most entertaining morning with the Solari Taxi www.SolariTaxi.com with Louis Palmer and gang on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls with the guys at Niagara Helicopters , the "Spirit of DC" is heading for Pittsburgh later this Saturday afternoon. Check out the details on www.SpiritofDC.com ... when I can post an update.

Hopefully, we can talk by cell phone later today as well about demo'ing the EVADC-lead sponsor of the Plug-in Hybrid EV going all around America on its PHEV Day 64.

- Updated to add more details -

The Spirit of DC enjoyed visiting with the members of the Three Rivers EVA. She even got to meet the club President's electric car - the PA Electrics Xebra, while EVJerry spent some time talking with the various club members.

The Three Rivers EVA meets on the third Saturday of every month at the PA Electrics shop in Export, PA. www.threeriverseva.org/meeting.html

PA Electrics currently sells Electric Bicycles, Electric Tricycles and kid-size Electric Scooters. They plan to expand this fall into selling DOT certified Electric Scooters and Electric Motorcycles. Though their dream is to one day offer Electric vehicles of all types - up to and including Electric Cars.

Three Rivers EVA President, Jonathan Belak and his family took EVJerry out to lunch. Jonathan had a chance to try out hypermiling in the Spirit of DC on the way to the restaurant and his wife Bonnie drove the Spirit of DC back to PA Electrics. Their daughter Jolene was disappointed that she was unable (not old enough) to drive it as well, but she at least got to ride in the Spirit of DC.

Bonnie thought it was a lot of fun to drive - but hard to keep under 34 mph when going downhill - in order to stay in EV mode. That is one advantage the all electric Xebra has over the PHEV Prius - the Xebra can coast downhill with abandon, and never have to worry about going out of EV mode. LOL. However, the PHEV Prius can handle steep hills better than the all electric Xebra. Of course, there are newer modification available that will allow a PHEV Prius to go up to 54 mph and still stay in EV Mode. Hopefully when Toyota begins to offer factory Plug-in Hybrids - that is the speed threshold that they choose to implement.

EVJerry stayed overnight with the Belak's and Monday morning was able to view Murrysville's large living Tree Sign on the way back over to the PA Electrics shop.

Then while the Spirit of DC visited some more with the PA Electrics Xebra, EVJerry spent some time talking with Lynda Lyman of the Penn-Franklin News. Bonnie from the Three Rivers EVA has promised to scan and email EVJerry the article when it comes out in the local paper.

After leaving PA Electrics Monday afternoon - the Spirit of DC meet up with several more members of the Three Rivers EVA in downtown Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Science Center, before heading off Monday night to Ohio.

The Three Rivers EVA club Treasurer and her daughter took a lot of pictures during the visit, too many to share here in the blog. But if you would like to see all 52 of them - just visit this link on Flickr - http://flickr.com/photos/bsbjjbjmb/sets/72157607053836744/