Letting in the Light

North Carolina chapter spawns an LEV training business

TEVA chapter member Mark Smith gives technician training class in India

Way back in 2005, just a year after joining North Carolina’s Triad Electric Vehicle Association (TEVA of NC), systems architect/engineer Mark Smith began working on Light Electric Vehicles (LEVs) with three fellow chapter members who were also engineers: “Dr Jack” Martin, retired Silicon Valley executive Bill Bucklen, and “Dr Don” Gerhardt, a former vice-president at Ford, GM, and Ingersoll-Rand.

All four men felt that LEVs could eventually be one of the most important forms of personal transportation, and had already been supporting that cause. Smith had introduced LEVs at DiscoverE programs in Central North Carolina middle and high schools. Martin had been working on LEVs in STEM programs and the EV Challenge. Gerhardt had joined with Ed Benjamin of the Light Electric Vehicle Association (LEVA) to offer training programs—and certification— to aspiring ebike mechanics.  

Within a few years, outreach efforts by these chapter members at local electric vehicle (EV) events had grown to include presentations at conferences around the country, and eventually around the world. Ten years later, 11 TEVA of NC members, representing 1 out of every 10 people in the chapter, had followed Gerhardt into becoming Certified Light EV Technical instructors. As Smith said, “If it hadn’t been for TEVA, we would never have had the critical mass to get all this going.”

Chasing EVs for 50 years

Smith, who grew up on a family farm in Maryland, began working on bicycles when he was a child, and built his own ebike at 14. “I took some surplus parts and motorcycle batteries… it was definitely Rube Goldberg style,” Smith explained.

As a senior in high school, Smith entered an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Enginners (IEEE) competition in Baltimore describing a project on computers and small EVs. His presentation won him an engineering scholarship to Duke University. 

Later, in graduate school at Virginia Tech, he became part of a group of engineers who visited local schools to help enhance the STEM curriculum with hands-on building of solar electric and small motor project activities. “We also took GE electric vans into the Blacksburg, Virginia schools,” Smith said, adding that during his subsequent nine years at Cornell University in Ithica, New York, he continued outreach in local schools, but transitioned into a focus on ebikes in the Engineers Week program, later renamed Discover Engineering.   

“That was in the 1990’s, when ebikes and e-scooters such as Segways and other LEVs were becoming very popular,” Smith said. “For several years, I led groups of 20 engineers into a rural middle school, and every student there was routed through our program.” 

Taking responsibility 

From Ithaca, Smith moved to Chapel Hill, NC, added a Plug-in EV to his growing fleet of ebikes and e-scooters,  joined TEVA of NC, and soon began more coordinated LEV outreach along with Martin, Gerhard, Bucklen, and many other TEVA of NC members. 

“LEV manufacturing and distribution were very disorganized back then. It was like the early days of the automobile industry when everything was so scattered,” Smith explained. “You could buy an LEV, but you could only get it serviced at the store you bought it from. Every shop would affiliate with just one or two brands, and there were hundreds of these brands and parts catalogues.” 

Partly as a response, Gerhardt  began collecting information and teaching an introduction to LEVs at bicycle shows.

“We helped Don with his E Bike Maintenance Manual (EBMM), which became a guide to the ins and outs of ebikes,” Smith said. This included lists on where to find bikes, how to maintain and repair them, and how to acquire the parts.

“Any dealer who used the EBMM would have a prayer of getting parts and services for just about any ebike or Light EV that customers needed repaired,” Smith explained.

In 2012, Gerhardt began teaching a course  at  a local community college in Danville, Virginia, making the manual come alive with what was eventually the annual Light EV Technician Training and Certification program. Under the auspices of LEVA, originally founded by Benjamin, this course demonstrated the special tools needed to become ebike and LEV mechanics. Benjamin then began teaching the course in Florida.

“Today, he [Benjamin] teaches the online classes, and we evolved the hands-on,” Smith said. 

And now worldwide!

Over the past 10 years, Smith estimates that LEVA has trained over 1000 mechanics. Students from dozens of states, Canada, and other countries, recently including Bermuda and Argentina, have traveled to Danville to take the course. Typically, they return home to train others. 

Gerhardt has taught the course across Europe and the Americas, while Gerhardt, Martin, and Smith, have taken the class to International bike conferences in the US and India. In all, the workshop has been presented in over a dozen countries. 

Additionally, the LEV Technician Training and Certification program has been merged into semester-long courses at Virginia and North Carolina colleges. Gerhardt and Martin currently work with Appalachian State University and Alamance Community College. Smith is now working with Wake Tech Community College to include the LEV Tech content into the North Carolina Community Colleges and Virginia Community Colleges course catalogs.

For the younger set, Smith is assisting in a restart of the EV Challenge for Youth. Grant applications have been submitted to bring an LEV Technician Training and Certification program to high school students using a basic, 3-wheel electric scooter or kcart.

Onward….  

“It’s just very important to press on this now,” said Smith, who is still involved in basic chapter outreach and points out that TEVA of NC includes Light EVs at all of the chapter’s Drive Electric Earth Day and National Drive Electric Week events.

“I own 12 LEVs for my family at this point, and I always keep one in my car so I can take it out when I go to an outreach event,” Smith said. 

As for the LEV tech classes, Smith would like to see an expansion in number. “We are interested in helping other EVA chapters teaching these LEV certification courses,” he concluded. “If there’s any chapter out there that would like to try it out, we’re happy to get them started!”