National Drive Electric Week has lots to celebrate. For10 years this event has been championing all electric and hybrid plug-ins around the world. This year they will be online starting with the NDEW Kick-Off Event event on Sep 24, 2020.
Zan Dubin-Scott, one of the co-founders of NDEW, recalls the 75 car Santa Monica EV parade that started it all. The organizers had been hoping for some press, but there was a crash on the freeway. To their disappointment, no one covered the parade. “I thought EVs were everything. We knew they weren’t just about driving, they were about climate change.” The next year Dubin Scott urged their board make it a national event and National Plug-in Day was born (later to be called National Drive Electric Week.)
Fast forward to 2019. NDEW held 325 events in every single state and eight countries. Some of the countries that held events were Mexico, Belgium, Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia.
This year, National Organizers are National Drive Electric Week, Plug In America, the Sierra Club, and the Electric Auto Association. Special guests include TV personality Bill Nye, race car driver and environmental activist Leilani Münter, and NPR host Peter Sagal. 14 Events are planned nationally, and with intriguing topics like Find Your Perfect Match: EV Speed Dating, and Electrify Your Ride to School there is a lot of info to get you excited about EVs; and you can search on the site to see local events, like Green Wheels Expo. There is even an EV Trivia Happy Hour. Best yet- Register to attend an in-person or online event for a chance to win a $250 Visa gift card!
Dubin Scott’s enthusiasm for the plug in has not waned in 10 years. “The main piece of knowledge that underlies all of our activism is that nothing so much sells someone on an electric car as getting someone to drive one, ” she says. “We call it butt in seat. My desire is to not preach to the choir. Anything that I can try to do to get the message to non EV owners, I do.”
Please see the NDEW events page for more information about national, state and local events.
