National Drive Electric Week
Treasure Valley Drive Electric Car Show
Meridian, ID
Oct 05, 2024

Event Report

• No speakers. We played music over a small PA System. 

• Idaho Power, Program Specialist at Idaho Power

• Defused Electrical, Display of: Residential Level 1 and Level 2 Charging installations

• Idaho Governor's Office of Energy and Mineral Resources, Display of: NEVI, National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program

• Treasure Valley Clean Cities, Display of: Regional Alt Fuel & Fleet Funding Resources

• The event was held at the Glovebox in Meridian, a private car collection. The owner invited some owners of supercars to drop by and a Ferrari Hybrid was present for about 10 minutes before leaving. We had a Hummer EV, 2 Cybertrucks, an Acura ZDX, Mercedes-Benz EQ, Proterra/Volvo, City Transit Bus, Peterbilt, Refuse All-Electric, and more. 

• No videos, but we did capture some photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wxfhZ5rjvaDgQgb0HY3v-rNNIOHMNEVk?usp=sharing

• The event was in a poor location in an area that was not paired with another event. Meridian in general is not EV friendly, however there are users of EV's, but because there is so much misinformation about EV's in the state of Idaho, our next event should be paired with something where people who are friendly to EV's will be present. We were situated near a Lowes Store and there was at least 4 times when Diesel trucks drove by and Coal Rolled the parking lot and EV's closest to the entrance, which was horrible to witness because it only discourages event guests to want to participate again. 

• The Treasure Valley Clean Cities Coalition tried to push a Ride & Drive event, but they were told we wouldn't have enough time to organize it. Coming from Drive Clean Colorado and Northern Colorado Clean Cities, Jason Green offered to organize that component but was discouraged and asked to focus on bringing in as many EV's as possible. In the end he was able to bring in 29 vehicles along with 5 dealerships (which was a 'first' for the Idaho-based event)  there was really only four people (Tasha Tolley 15%, Randi Walkins andJason Green 80%, and James Van Dinter 10%) that organized the entirety of the event and in the end we could have easily incorporated a Ride & Drive event if we had more support from the Plug-In Boise group to help promote the event. For a clean cities organization to be involved, the turn-out for attendance was not impressive, though they did organize the most EV's to ever be involved with a local EV event. 

photo by: Jason V. Green, Assistant Director for the Treasure Valley Clean Cities & Communities Coalition It was very poor attendance. 29 vehicles and 0 attendees off an on. Parking was plentiful, but very few people showed up that were new to EV's or unaffiliated with Plug-In Boise or the rest of the EV's event organizers/EV owners. We estimate this was one of the worse attended NDEW events in the past 10 years for this area. Weather was great, location could have been better, Coal Rollers were a pain. Spirits were high. National sponsors like the local Nissan Dealership were unresponsive for our requests for help. None of the dealerships provided outreach as this was the first event they had been invited too and still, most likely, do not understand the value or can not calculate an ROI.

More photos from this event.

Event Description

Registered Attendees

There are currently 42 attendees registered.

Plug-In Vehicles Registered by Attendees

Registered attendees report 547,117 electric miles driven.