2019 Empire Clean Vehicle Festival
October 17, 2019
Empire Clean Cities held their annual Empire Clean Vehicle Festival in Union Square Park. The event showcased many battery electric, hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles used by many city agencies and other companies in the city. The highlight for Evolv-Electric was talking to Ryne Shetterly of GreenPower Motor Company and talking about the hybrid Volvo S90.
Rafael Espinal Rally to Protest NYC DOE Failure to Start Electric School Bus Pilot Program
September 5, 2019
Councilmember Rafael Espinal allocated $1.5 million to the NYC DOE to start an all-electric school us pilot program for the 2019-2020 school year. Using our contacts in the industry, Evolv-Electric determined that the DOE was not going to start a pilot because they had not even ordered the school buses as late as August. At this point, it seems the pilot program will start for the 2020-2021 school year.
2019 Empire Clean Cities 11th Annual Stakeholder Meeting
May 16, 2019
Empire Clean Cities held their 11th annual stakeholders meeting at the Queens Theatre in connection with the 31st Annual NYC Parks Department’s Equipment & Vehicle Show. The theme of the event was “Driving the Future: Clean fuels, fleets and technologies” and was attended by over 100 guests, 16 speakers with Concilmember Costa Constantinides as the guest of honor. Evolv-Electric was asked to moderate a panel on the future of all-electric medium and heavy-duty fleet vehicles with representatives from NYS MTA, Motiv, and BYD.
2019 New York International Auto Show
April 17 to April 28, 2019
Evolv-Electric was once again able to preview the New York International Car Show on press days. There was a surprising lack of electric vehicles on display. However, the highlight was being able to view the Rivian vehicles for the first time in the steel and speak to a few of the people who are developing the vehicle.
HBO’s VICE News: How To Get Rich Reporting On Idling Vehicles In NYC
March 30, 2019
VICE News report on NYC’s anti idling laws citizen suit provision that allowed citizens to receive 25 percent of any penalties collect based on their complaint was a huge hit. Although I did not get much air time in the final cut (you can see me around 2:41 in the video) it was a pleasure to be invited and talk to other individuals that have or were going to file complaints.
North Brooklyn Neighbors Interview
January 14, 2019
North Brooklyn Neighbors is a wonderful not-for-profit grassroots organization that focus on issues that affect Greenpoint and Williamsburg areas of BK. Air quality is one of their focus areas, so they asked to interview me about how school buses affect on air quality as they have a few school bus depots in their area. We also talked about how to influence how NYS DEC would allocate of the VW mitigation settlement funds.
New York City Council’s Environmental Committee Hearing on Electric School Bus Bill Intro 455-A.
December 17, 2018
Councilmember Costa Constantinides, the head of the NYC Council’s Environmental Committee held a hearing to discuss the feasibility of passing a bill to require the NYC DOE to transition all-electric school buses by 2040. Evolv-Electric and many other environmental groups and school bus manufacturers advocated in favor of transitioning to all-electric school buses. The bill currently has enough sponsors to pass but a vote on the bill has still not be scheduled.
2018 Empire Clean Vehicle Festival
October 11, 2018
Empire Clean Cities held their annual Empire Clean Vehicle Festival in Union Square Park. The event showcased many battery electric, hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles used by many city agencies and other companies in the city. The highlight for Evolv-Electric was touring the first all-electric type C school buses in New York being used as part of the White Plains pilot program.
ALIGN’s City Hall Rally to Support All-Electric School Bus Legislation
September 26, 2018
ALIGN invited Evolv-Electric to speak at their rally at City Hall in support of the requiring the NYC Department of Education to us all-electric school buses and create a school bus worker cooperative. We were joined by City Councilmembers Helen Rosenthal, Robert Cornegy, Keith Powers, Ydanis Rodriguez, Rafael Espinal Jr. and Senator Jamaal Bailey. We were also joined by Michael Cordiello of Amalgamated Transit Union, NYLCV, ICA Group, NYLPI.
New School Year, Same Dirty Buses: A Townhall on Air Quality
September 24, 2018
The Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams hosted a townhall discussing organized by the NYLCV to address diesel emissions from buses and their impact on air quality. Evolv-Electric was invited to speak about the pending NYC Council all-electric school bus legislation. Many other groups were in attendance including US PIRG, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, NYU Marron Institute, ALIGN, and Resilient Red Hook.
Delivered Electric School Bus Petition to Governor Cuomo’s Office
June 27, 2018
Evolv-Electric’s Electric School Bus Campaign along with the New York League of Conservation Voters, US Public Interest Group, and ICA Group delivered a petition with over 80,000 signatures asking Governor Cuomo to allocate a large portion of the Volkswagen Dieselgate Mitigation Settlement funds toward purchasing electric school buses. The petition along with other lobbying efforts we were successful. On September 5, 2018, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation released the New York State Beneficiary Mitigation Plan and allocated at least $52.4 million towards buses with a priority for all-electric school buses.
2018 New York International Auto Show
March 28 to April 8, 2018
Evolv-Electric had the pleasure of getting passes for the 2018 NYIAS press days. It was great to walk around the halls before the general admission days and speak with many of the car manufacturers. We were able to get some exclusive interviews with many of the staff at Lucid Motors.
Asking Mayor DeBlasio to support Electric School Bus Legislation
March 28, 2018
Councilmember Daniel Dromm introduced legislation (intro bill 455) in the New York City Council that would mandate the New York City Department of Education to require their contractors to use all-electric school buses by 2040. At a townhall meeting in councilmember Dromm’s district 25, I was able to ask Mayor DeBlasio to support the legislation.