Next up on my North America tour was Austin, Texas. The flight from Toronto was a joy! I stayed with Bill Tims who graciously lent me access to a giant Texas pickup truck. Went to Chuy’s 7 times and met up with Robert L. Tycast, John Webb and the Beechinor clan.
I went over to Fred Behning’s house to watch the latest EVTV video and talk electric cars. He brought home enough parts from the EVCCON to build yet another electric car but hasn’t chosen his project car yet, including a battery pack from Better Place. I got to drive his Nissan Leaf as it has the best aircon of his electric fleet, and came away very impressed.
I went to the Tesla Motors showroom twice. Ironically, it’s located on the former parkland of the IBM site in north Austin where I used to work. We didn’t talk much about Tesla, as the guys were more interested in Thailand and my electric Porsche 914. I think I’ve got one of the guys convinced to come over for a holiday!
I took the new light rail from Lakeline to downtown and was very impressed, they just need to run the trains more often and on Sundays. As I wandered downtown, I went into a motorcycle shop to find they carry the Zero electric motorcycles. The salesman was very knowledgeable and spent a lot of time talking with me. Very cool with an on-road and off-road model. Direct drive from the motor to the rear wheel with a belt drive.
The BMW electric i3 has just been released so I thought I would stop in at the BMW dealer and see if they had any in stock yet. They actually had 3 and I got a great test drive in one, check out my video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXWW7RYgx0s
Next up is deep in Mississippi with Jordan Brown.