Saturday, July 11, 2009

My Twike meets its first Tesla

Today was the OEVA EV Awareness day in Portland, Oregon. We had vehicles of many types from conversions, to factory production vehicles, to motorized bikes. I was there all day with my Twike since I can now drive from my house to downtown and back and I'm also part of the OEVA group. What made my day though was when a Tesla showed up. The owner is David Stiers who you may remember as the actor who played Charles Winchester on MASH! It turns out his is retired and lives just south of Newport Oregon. He heard indirectly that there was something happening today in Portland around Electric Vehicles and thought it would be great fun to show up. He found our web site and just took it upon himself to drive the 130 miles from Newport to Portland (good to have a Tesla with 240 mile range). Thus this afforded me several things. One, I got to meet him and a fine gentleman and in good humor he was. Secondly, I got to see my first Tesla in person after reading about them for ages. And thirdly, probably not the first but one of the few shots of a Twike and Tesla together. I have a 2kwh pack in the Twike and can go 20 miles, the Tesla has a 50kwh pack and can go 240 miles (and of course top speed is 150 miles per hour). I have him in efficiency but he has me in every other category (except luggage space, I think I win there). Thanks to David for just showing up as he is one of only 3 Telsa vehicles in Oregon (so I hear). In regards to the Twike, it is doing great and it getting regular use as I drive it to/from work everyday.

2 comments:

M@ said...

That's awesome! I am so envious of Portland/Oregon... trying to establish a local EV-owner's group here in C-U... Madision, WI actually has their own HYBRID owner's group. *sigh* things are so much easier when you're a group > 1 ;-)

M@
Twike 433

Unknown said...

Hi Phil, I was sitting in my car right next to your Twike on the intersection of Bethany and West Union, last Friday. I was fascinated by the little car, so I did some (a lot of) research online and found your blog. Its pretty cool looking, the whole joystick interface and powertrain setup is pretty amazing. Hope you have a good time with it. Good luck!