Fully Charged LIVE has one more day to go... I was lucky enough to be there on days one and two. As I left Silverstone yesterday afternoon, courtesy of the fabulous Martyn Lee of @EVNewsDaily podcast fame, my overriding feeling was one of having been swamped by kindness over the course of the show. Hence the 'LOVE'.
The LOVE started before even reaching the venue. 200 electric car drivers gave their time freely to ferry delegates from the car park to the venue. For many, this will have been their first ride in an electric car. What a perfect start to the Fully Charged experience. Kudos to the @TeslaOwnersUK and the other EV drivers who made this happen.
Big shout out to Francesca from the Fully Charged team who went waaay out of her way to help me on arrival. Suffice to say, she helped me out of a tight spot with my bag and a VIP pass.
The atmosphere of the show was electric from the start. Excellent business to business networking on day one, thanks to the VIP 500 initiative, thanks to the REA. The best part for me was to put faces to Twitter names. It was amazing to meet @fi_saunders, @pluginadventure, @KateFantom, @The_PlugSeeker, @raimonick, @GarethEdwards86, and many more, in person. I'm so glad that you all actually do exist!
A challenge to us all though... how do we break out of our bubble and spread the EV word further afield? I spoke briefly about this with Dan Caesar from Fully Charged. One thing's for sure. Fully Charged LIVE is a great start.
A highlight of my Friday was representing ElectraLink in a live panel session on 'How's the UK doing on Energy & Transport?'. Hosted by Maddie Moate, fellow panellists and absolute experts, were Dave Greenwood from WMG, and Tom Callow from BP Chargemaster. Discussion ranged from data-driven support for EV uptake through projects such as the LCT Detection project, through to battery life and how people's attitudes in general are shifting towards a life of electric driving.
And so to my next experience of kindness. A friend of a friend had mentioned to me that their seven year old severely autistic son had written to Maddie Moate a number of times. A response from her would mean the world to him. So, armed with a letter from seven year old Alex, my mission was to conjure up enough confidence to ask Maddie for at least a photograph of her with the letter, or an autograph. Maddie's reaction blew me away. Rather than do either of those things, Maddie asked if she could take the letter away with her, research the question, and write a full response to Alex. And she did just that. I collected a hand written letter from Maddie on the Saturday. This will make one little boy happier than we can imagine, no doubt.
Bringing us back to the event itself, let's not forget the fantastic array of exhibitors and the electric cars themselves. It was great to catch up with DriveElectric and Cleevely EV. I was over the moon to meet my first Tesla Model 3, and curious to see a DeLorean converted to electric. Over 100 makes and models of EV have been at the show. Alas I didn't find time to test drive, but to be honest, I was happy to leave the test drives to the newcomers.
I was thrilled to be invited to chat with Martyn Lee for his @EVNewsDaily podcast on the Saturday. We talked about ElectraLink's Energy Market Data Hub and how data is driving innovation in the energy sector; we spent time discussing EVclicks, with some great ideas for the online EV image library; I updated Martyn on my Ohme EV intelligent cable smart charging experience. And so it was time to leave in style with a lift from Martyn in his Renault Zoe. A perfect end to a brilliant two days at Fully Charged LIVE.
Thank you to Robert Llewellyn, Dan Casear and all the team at Fully Charged for the best electric vehicle and cleantech show ever! I'm already looking forward to next year.
