Demonstrating the power of documentary film as a force for change, the film Who Killed the Electric Car inspired a resurgence in electric vehicle advocacy and optimism, and helped lay the groundwork for a major shift in the attitudes toward and opinions of EVs. In this session, director Chris Paine will be answering your questions and might just show us some clips of never before seen footage.

As an isolated island nation, electric vehicles have held the hearts of New Zealanders, particularly since the oil shocks of the 1970’s. Come along to hear the journey of one EV advocate in New Zealand’s past, present, and future.

Many remote towns and villages are not and will not be connected to national grids. Electricity in these locations is usually supplied via diesel fueled generators. This is expensive and not particularly environmentally friendly. Jan will present the economical and technical viability of using photovoltaic technology to supply electricity in remote areas. He will describe the basic architecture of photovoltaic systems that use batteries and diesel generators for backup energy to assure the reliability of the system even on cloudy days. Challenges of micro grids are illustrated with examples of solar systems that his company has already installed. Additionally he will discuss a future project that will be installed on an island in the Caribbean. This island has about 1000 inhabitants and usually about 100 tourists. It will use a centralized PV plant and will incorporate small scale distributed generation.

What can the Tesla community do to accelerate mainstream adoption of the Model 3? David will discuss the user experience challenges that incoming Electric Vehicle novices are likely to face. Leveraging his background building transportation software for millions of users at Embark and Apple, David will present data on Tesla driving patterns. He’ll dig into the current state of charging and range-anxiety, propose ideas for how the community can evangelize Tesla to a mainstream buyer, and propose ideas for what Tesla can do in the coming months as the Model 3 comes to market.

Electric and autonomous technologies are all but inevitable, in some combination. When, how, and by whom is still a matter of opportunity. Tesla has moved from a startup to a major player in this arena, but newcomers are vying for a piece. This discussion with Lucid Motors will explore their mission to join, if not lead the pack.

Two years ago during a round table discussion at TMC Connect, Mark and others discussed the need to see great electric car racing. At last year’s conference, Mark presented about the Electric GT Championship and the plan he and his team had to turn it into reality. This year they have taken this all the way right up to launch. Mark describes how they got there, what they have discovered, and how this will become an international race series.

Electric Motorcycles face their own unique development and marketing challenges. As a General Manager at Energica Motor Company, Stefano will provide with some insight into his Italy-based company’s efforts to bring their Electric Motorcycles into the mainstream.

Moscow Tesla Club started three years ago when there was little to no awareness of Electric Vehicles in Russia. They made it their goal “to add as many EVs to the roads as possible”. It has been a tricky but fascinating experience building momentum for EV advancement since then. Igor will discuss the insights, pitfalls, and achievements of promoting EV growth in a local market.

Love or hate, press coverage of Tesla never fails to generate “passion” from all sides. From the inside out, this panel discusses the experience of covering Tesla from a media point of view.