National Drive Electric Week
Manhattan, KS
Sep 20, 2019
Manhattan, KS
Sep 20, 2019
| Day: | Friday, September 20, 2019 NOTE: this event has already happened, find current-year events on the Attend page. |
| Time: | 10 am to 1:30 pm |
| Location: | Kansas State University Student Union 918 N 17th Street Parking Circle in front of Student Union Manhattan, KS 66506 |
Event Report
Our event was organized hastily, the day before the event. However, we managed to have the owners of 5 BEVs attend with their cars. We met at the circle drive/parking space next to the Kansas State Student Union from 10am to 1:00pm, where we shared parking space with the other ICE cars who parked there, and the campus buses that came and went. Because only attended parked cars were allowed to park there, and we were attending our parked cars, we were able to park there when not giving people ride-alongs. We also brought a small table on which we put our informational handouts on "The 5 top reasons to choose an electric car" from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which we put between the sidewalk and the parking area (so as not to block pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk). We also had a clipboard on which we had 30 Ride-Along Waiver/Release forms that we had people sign before taking a ride-along. Over the course of the 3 hours, we met and talked with roughly 40 people, and gave ride-alongs to 27 people. Most people who came by were very receptive, and several students who saw us while walking to class managed to come back after class and do ride-alongs. One professor told us he was thinking of getting an EV, and after taking a ride-along said that he had now decided to buy an EV. We took pictures with a number of different people who attended and took ride-alongs.Our event was loosely in conjunction with two student environmental organizations that were involved in the Global Climate Strike at the same time in front of the Student Union. We let them know that we were there, visited their table a couple of times during our event, and at least two of their members visited our event. We also mentioned their event to a number of people who came to ours. This was probably beneficial for both their event and ours, but a stronger connection in future events (e.g., on Earth Day), with more clearly planned structural connections (e.g., signs at each event telling about the other event) would be more beneficial.
In future events, we will want to have much more preparation, including making a committee with different people taking on different tasks, making official links with the university, and sending information to media and other public relations. We will also want to have our event insured through the Electric Auto Association.
photo by: Les Loschky National Drive Electric Week, Manhattan, Kansas, event, next to the Kansas State University (KSU) Student Union, on September 20, 2019. Left to right: Dan Andresen, KSU student, Gary Brase, three KSU students, and Julie Kennan. |
Event Description
Drop by to see electric vehicles, talk to owners and go for a test drive to find out what driving electric is all about.
