Founding EVA chapter connects with entrepreneurial stars

Electric Auto Association Silicon Valley (EAASV), established in 1967 as the original Electric Auto (now Vehicle) Association, has a long history of attracting members and presenting speakers who have gone on to become tech and transportation luminaries.  

“John Newell, Walter Lasky, and Bill Palmer were the founders of the EAA that eventually became the first chapter,” said Ron Freund, a long-time EAASV member who also served on the EVA Board. “Palmer worked at General Electric’s Nuclear Energy Division back then, while Stan Skokan, our treasurer, was the engineer at Hewlett-Packard (HP) who measured BIll Hewlett’s shirt pocket to make sure their calculator would fit.” 

“So many of our members have been practicing engineers, not just tinkerers,” Freund continued. “And that entrepreneurship persists here in the valley. It’s a very strong spirit.” 

As an example, Freund referenced an EAASV history highlight, Tesla CTO J.B. Straubel’s August 2006 preview of the company’s Roadster at a chapter meeting.

“We filled the place, which had a 225-person capacity,” said Jerry Pohorsky, another former EVA board member who has served as EAASV chapter president for 11 of the past 13 years. “It was standing room only. It was the first time most of us heard anything about the Roadster and we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. After that, the word spread fast.”

When Straubel—also known for his 1984 Porsche 944 EV conversion—left Tesla, he founded Redwood Materials, a leading  lithium battery recycling company in Carson City, Nevada.  

Members of mention

EAASV member Tom Gage, the former CEO of AC Propulsion, produced the tzero, predecessor to the Tesla Roadster. “The car was powered by thousands of small lithium batteries,” Pohorsky explained. “Tesla licensed the technology.” More recently, Gage became the CEO of EVGrid, working on Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) tech.  

Much earlier in the chapter’s history, member Otmar Ebenhoech, who would go on to create the Villa DC Motor Controller, made a strong impression on the DIY community using DC motors. 

“Otmar was one of our first speakers,” said Pohorsky. “He had all these charts and graphs showing the power going into the motor. It was very technical but captivating. He was also the owner of the California Poppy Porsche 914. That was quite a conversion.”

Chapter member Ian Wright cofounded Tesla then later founded Wrightspeed, a company that built large hybrid trucks in San Jose. Eventually moving to Alameda, California, the manufacturer was later renamed REVO Powertrains. Wright also developed the Wrightspeed X1, an EV sports car known for beating gasoline-powered sports cars in a drag race.“I got a thrill ride in the X1 at a chapter meeting,” said Pohorsky. “And I would recommend Ian’s TedX talk.”  

Val Miftakhov, also a member of the chapter, founded Electric Motorworks, where he first converted BMWs to electric and then moved onto manufacturing JuiceBox charging stations. When that company was bought out by ENEL X, Miftakhov used the substantial profit to launch ZeroAvia in Hollister, California to develop and manufacture fuel cell-powered electric aircraft using green hydrogen (locally produced by electrolysis of water using solar or wind power). 

“The ZeroAvia technology gives 4 times the range of a similar battery-powered electric plane,” said Pohorsky. “Creating the hydrogen fuel at the airport eliminates the need for trucking expensive hydrogen from distant suppliers. It’s very cool."

Pohorsky also spoke of chapter members Tom McCalmont, founder and CEO of Paired Power, building solar canopy charging stations that can be assembled and installed in four hours, and Richard Hatfield, founder and CEO of Lightning Motorcycle.

“Our EAASV group had a tour of the Lightning facility in San Jose and a field trip to the company’s new location in Hollister a couple of years ago,” Pohorsky said. “Richard’s magic sauce has been  a battery that is low to the ground. This provides a lower center of gravity so the rider can better lean into a turn.”

Lightning’s accolades include a first place finish at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb with the LS-218, an e-motorcycle that had formerly set a land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats when it hit 218 mph. This same model was featured on Jay Leno’s Garage.

Pohorsky added that the original LS-218 is priced at approximately $40,000, but that the newer version—the Lightning Strike—costs half that much and is “insanely fast.”

Recruiting the best and the brightest 

“What’s the reason we have great speakers? Because we’ve gone out and solicited them,” explained Pohorsky. “If we see someone giving a great presentation, we bring them in to do it for us. We’ve been doing that for years.”

Pohorsky cited his invitation to Jim Castalez, founder and CTO of Motiv Power Systems, a firm that builds and sells small and mid-size electric vehicle (EV) trucks, vans, and buses. 

“Jim has given presentations to our group twice and displayed an electric delivery van at one of our annual EV shows at De Anza College in Cupertino,” Pohorsky said. “Motiv currently has a few electric buses serving the city of Mountain View.”

Another executive invited to speak was Tom Sun, cofounder and CEO of AmpUp, a startup in Cupertino that developed an app for mobile phones allowing users to search for EV charging stations in order to reserve a time slot in advance. The company also handles the payment process on behalf of the station owners.  

Freund referenced Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute.  “He is a PhD in economics who approaches everything from an economic standpoint,” Freund said. “He has a lot of credits to his name, including recommending the double-paned windows on New York’s Empire State Building. He was pontificating on an all-electric composite Hypercar using rechargeable batteries back in 2000.  He’s been way ahead of his time.”

Freund also mentioned Guy Kaplinsky, cofounder and CEO of ASKA Fly, where his team is working with NASA on a plug-in hybrid flying car. “Our chapter had a recent meeting in his Los Altos showroom,” Freund said, noting the mock-up cockpit in the lobby. “Of course, this is all still theory. It’s very expensive; three-quarters of a million dollars each.”

“Another interesting guest speaker was Steven Visco, the CEO of Polyplus in Berkeley that develops several battery chemistries including lithium sulfide,” said Pohorsky. “Dr. Visco has many patents on batteries; another real visionary. He’s also a guest scientist at Livermore Labs” in Livermore, California.

Other distinctions 

In addition to hosting prominent speakers, EAASV has raised its profile in the Bay Area by participating in local events, in 2014 setting a Guiness World Record for most EVs in a parade (507).

For many years, the chapter’s annual car show has also drawn local attention. Once held on the Stanford University campus, “The chapter had a rally course in downtown Palo Alto,” Pohorsky recalled. “It was mostly members with electric conversions. They’d count the number of laps to see who could do the most. It was about durability and endurance.” 

Eventually, the show moved to Palo Alto High School and then De Anza College. More of late, the chapter is sponsoring ride-and-drives at San Jose’s Lake Cunningham Park in partnership with Breathe California. 

Lobbying EV1 style

Pohorsky  leased his first EV, a GM EV1, in 1999. An early advocate for green energy, he drove the car to Sacramento in 2003, stopping in Davis, California to charge overnight before testifying  before the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

“There was some push back on the Zero Emission Vehicle Program which mandated that 10 percent of the cars being sold in California had to be zero emission,” Pohorsky explained. “There was a hearing about lowering the requirement to 2 percent. Members of the public were allowed to attend to provide input and I was part of that.”

Pohorsky recalls that CARB invited representatives of the automakers to testify in favor of lowering the requirement, and they were called up first. As the day wore on, with one industry rep after another taking the microphone, Pohorsky’s presentation time was reduced to 3 minutes.

‘I had to throw it out because it was suddenly too long. It was very unsettling,” Pohorsky said. “I remember looking up, seeing the EPA logo on the wall and saying “You guys are supposed to be the Environmental Protection Agency, not the corporate profit protection agency. That sound bite was captured by Chris Paine when he made Who Killed the Electric Car?, so I’m in the movie.”

Freund recalled that Plug In America started when GM was engaged in taking back and crushing the EV1s. “They were  an ad hoc group but they wanted to become a non-profit so people could make donations. They became a chapter of the EAA temporarily so they could use our non-profit status.”

After losing his EV1 to a crusher, Pohorsky took over the lease of a Chevrolet S-10, a pick-up truck with an EV1 motor. 

“GM wouldn’t sell me the EV1 and they wouldn’t sell me the S-10 either,” Pohorsky said, explaining that GM eventually demanded the S-10 back, too. “So I looked on the internet and bought a Porsche 914 conversion, 5-speed with no clutch. After two years, I sold it to a fellow chapter member and bought a Toyota RAV 4 EV which I’m still driving today.”

Reach out that matters

When Pohorsky joined the EAASV in 2005, Will Beckett was chapter president. “He worked at HP in Palo Alto, so they let us have our chapter meetings there,” Pohorsky said. “I happened to be at the meeting where Beckett announced he was moving out of the area. He offered  to pay the EAA membership fee for anyone who would replace him as president, so I raised my hand.”

Pohorsky said that one of his most important accomplishments as a former EAA board member was forming a Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) special interest group and merging it with CalCars.  

“They (CalCars) needed to fund their R&D on a hybrid they were building—they were attempting to convert a regular Prius hybrid to a plug-in using motorcycle batteries,” Pohorsky explained. “They needed money to make the circuit boards so we formed a special interest group to help out. At the time, Toyota was all over the media advertising hybrids where ‘you don’t have to plug it in’. That rubbed me the wrong way.”’

It wasn’t too many years before Toyota changed its messaging—and its product line—as a response to the PHEV actions. “We goaded them into it,” Pohorsky said. “Then we disbanded. Once Toyota came out with a plug-in hybrid, there was no need for our efforts.” 

But, of course, EAASV carried on in many other areas and continues to do so today. “There’s a big need right now and its critical that we meet it,” Freund concluded. “We’re fortunate to have 5 EVA chapters in the Bay Area, and we thrive off each other. Things are just accelerating all the time.”

The Electric Vehicle Association now has a shared speaker contact list for it’s chapters. Contact membership@myeva.org for more info.