Hilltop Chevrolet’s Chevy Volt in front of the Concord, NH State House during Drive Electric Week in September 2017. Photo courtesy Catherine Corkery, NH Sierra Club.

By Randy Bryan, co-Founder Drive Electric NH

Get ready! On Saturday, September 8th, the Sierra Club of NH will host the eighth annual National Drive Electric Week (NDEW) event, along with the Granite State Clean Cities Coalition, New Hampshire Automobile Dealers Association, and Drive Electric NH. The event will be at Capitol Plaza on Main Street in downtown Concord from 8:30 AM until 1 PM.

Since 2011, the event has gotten bigger and better, hosting a variety of electric cars and technology gathered together on the sidewalk in front of the State House, adjacent to the Concord Farmers Market. Dealerships will display their latest electric vehicles, and electric vehicle owners will be there to share their experiences as well. It’s a terrific opportunity to learn about electric cars, bikes, motorcycles, and trucks, as well as vehicle charging systems, in a fun and informational setting. You might even get to drive one!

Also, Drive Electric NH is helping to coordinate six or seven other NDEW events around the state, up from four events last year!

Check out DriveElectricNH.org and DriveElectricWeek.org websites to keep up-to-date on events, dates, times, and locations. This is your opportunity to go to an NDEW event near you, ask questions, kick the tires, and go for a drive in an electric car. We think you’ll like the ride!

In other news, NH has continued to progress on the electric-vehicles front. Governor Sununu has elected to allocate the full 15% of the Volkswagen Settlement Appendix D funds to charging infrastructure deployments. The Office of Strategic Initiatives is the lead organization overseeing this project, with full cooperation from various state and non-government organizations.

The NH Senate is convening a commission to make recommendations regarding the use of the Volkswagen funds and regarding the development of electric transportation options. Again, various critical stakeholders are involved in this commission, including Drive Electric NH.

Drive Electric NH has also helped several organizations stage five other EV events around NH this summer. This brings the total number of 2018 events organizing in NH to 12-13, so far, versus four last year. The number of interested and cooperating groups continues to expand. We invite all who are interested to host their own event to contact us for ideas, assistance and outreach. We also invite all owners of EVs and related technologies to contact us to display at our events.

Randy Bryan is one of the co-founders of Drive Electric NH. Randy has been an advocate for electric cars for eight-plus years. His company, ConVerdant Vehicles, has converted vehicles to plug-in hybrids, including his own Prius in 2008, and developed and sold inverters that turn a Prius into an emergency generator.