Drive Electric
Earth Day
April 20, 2019

Mark D Larsen


More exploitation than celebration
(Click to enlarge)


I learned from the EV owners in Las Vegas that they would be participating in the 2019 Earth Day, so I decided to join them this year instead of displaying my EV at the event near Zion Nat’l Park. I will confess that it did not turn out as well as I anticipated. The city managers had basically taken advantage of the environmental gathering to promote… capitalism! Inside the building was a huge market with all kinds of vendors, as shown in the above photo.



NOTE: You can click on the following photo to enlarge it, and the movies to play it.

Even worse, outside on the grass area were even more booths and displays set up by people hoping to sell their wares. Nowhere in that area were there any electric cars on display. There were, however, at the very back of the event, some auto dealers who had brought vehicles with the hope of attracting customers to their dealerships.

As for the EV owners, we were obliged to simply park our vehicles in an adjacent lot where few attendees would even notice them. I was discouraged that I didn't even get a chance to talk to passersby about the advantages of driving on electricity, but perhaps a few people got a chuckle out of the display in my frunk that I had already used at the 2019 Dixie Transportation Expo.


I informed the organizers that, if this is the kind of Earth Day celebration that Las Vegas will sponsor in the future, I would have to pass on participating. We'll see what happens next time!