Electric vehicle owners in Nanaimo are looking for like-minded drivers who would like to join an electric car club.
The Mid Vancouver Island Electric Vehicle Association will hold its first meeting Sunday, Jan. 19.
MVI-EVA has been formed as a way to “accelerate change” by promoting electric cars, said Joyce Lee, the association’s co-chairperson, and the association at this point is made up of electric car owners who were meeting at car charging stations and getting together for coffee.
“I met everybody at charging stations and the Petro Canada one is a great quality people-meeting place,” Lee said. “I size people up, you know, and I pull in there with my car and there’s somebody charging and I take a look at them and I think they’re probably somebody who might be interested in my pitch about joining the society.”
MVI-EVA, Lee said, offers opportunities to meet people who are passionate about electric vehicles and want to create a “clean, quiet future.”
The association is also promoting the installation of infrastructure to support electric vehicles within municipalities.
MVI-EVA meetings are being scheduled for the third Sunday of each month at 2 p.m. at the Harris Kia dealership on Bowen Road, which has supplied the group free space to hold its meetings, and casual coffee chats about “everything EV” are being held every second Monday at 10 a.m. at the Serious Coffee in Parksville. Lee said there are about 35 people who either get together directly or associate on Facebook.
“We’ve got people that come regularly who say, ‘Yeah, we want to do this,'” Lee said. “We have people getting together in Parksville for coffee chats, so we’ve got, regularly, people who visit our Facebook page, come to coffee chats and say they’re really committed to getting the society going.”
Lee said she hopes to have a core group of about 100 members by September who would be interested in attending car shows and doing other work to promote electric vehicles.
The association’s first meeting will host a guest speaker who will give a presentation on home electric vehicle charging stations.
To learn more about the association, get updates on electric vehicle technology and infrastructure and keep up to date on meeting times and locations, visit the MVI-EVA Facebook page at https://bit.ly/2QQwWNd.
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