Casteyanqui.com | Electric Vehicles | NDEW 2024 in Las Vegas

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Nat’l Drive Electric Week
in Las Vegas

Mark D Larsen
September 29, 2024

Another orbit completed since the last National Drive Electric Week EV’ent! It was again that time of year for EV aficionados to gather together and tout the benefits of driving on electricity to any of the public interested. Like last year, the Clark County Environmental Specialist, Olivia Burns, organized the EV’ent, this time held at the Desert Breeze Community Center in the south of Las Vegas. She is to be commended for her work! By my count, this was the 12th time I had attended these NDEW celebrations in Las Vegas since 2012, only missing one year due to the COVID pandemic. And this was the first time that I displayed our new Ioniq 5 Limited AWD. Below is the usual annotated album.

NOTE: You can click on the following photos to enlarge them, and the movies to play them.

My introductory video en route to the gathering.

I am always amused when descending this road to pass the cast iron silhouettes of prospectors and their mule teams. These are the ones on the right side of the road.

And these are the ones that are even closer on the left side. I have to hand it to whoever created and set up these fun, life size images in this barren desert.

Here I have crossed from Arizona into Nevada and am entering Mesquite.

There are lots of casinos in Mesquite, probably serving the gamblers from Utah. I once stopped here at the Casa Blanca casino to recharge my LEAF from an RV outlet when driving to NDEW in 2014.

I was amused by this semi hauling motor boats. They had cut a slit in the plastic to allow the air to flow through, then stuck some eyes on the sides. I wish I'd taken a video, for the air was making the "lips" talk to passersby.

Here I am entering the towns of Glendale and Moapa, where I had stopped to charge from other RV outlets for my first NDEW in 2012 and again for NDEW in 2015./SPAN>

I am delighted that the Moapa Paiute tribe now has installed a large solar farm on the reservation to sell electricity to the nearby community of Overton, where I stayed overnight in a motel and charged from its lowly 120V outlet, both coming and going for NDEW 2013.

What I found particularly ironic —and irksome— was to see a train loaded with coal heading past the solar farm, probably going to Las Vegas. Ugh!

Here I am entering Las Vegas, heading to the Electrify America chargers near the Sam's Club store in north end of the city.

By the time I arrived at the chargers, all four spaces were occupied. Drat!

I had driven 114.7 miles from home to get there, averaging 3.6 miles-per-kWh. Not bad at all!

I took this video while waiting for one of the EVs to finish charging so that I could plug in.

Here I have now plugged in, putting all the kW that Rocinante can accept from these EA stations.

With 79% and 1 minute to go, Rocinante is still pulling an impressive 157 kW of power. The charging curve with Ioniq EVs is truly outstanding.

All done, with 276 miles on the guess-o-meter.

I then drove 15.1 miles to the Desert Breeze Community Center, and several other EVs were already there, getting ready for the EV’ent. You see that I had popped the lid of Rocinante's frunk to take out my V2L adapter.

I parked in a spot next to another Ioniq 5 and set up my table with some handouts, my electric refrigerator with drinks, and my popcorn popper, both plugged in to that Lectron V2L adapter. I figured this might be a good way to show off that feature of Rocinante.

Across from us was a long row of Teslas extending to the south…

…and to the north.

There were more participants on this side of the middle row of spaces.

And more on the opposite side.

I was curious to see how much power the V2L was pulling from the battery with both the refrigerator and the popcorn popper running: 1.4 kW, with 0.4 to spare. As you can image, the popper was the real energy hog.

Later that afternoon, I was delighted to run into Stan Hanel, who had headed up these NDEW EV'ents until just two years ago. I wish I'd had more time to chat with him and hear what he's been up to in retirement.

After a few hours, the EV'ent started to wind down, I packed up my paraphenalia, set the navigation to take me to the EA chargers in Mesquite, and recorded this video when leaving Las Vegas.

This is the speedway that I mentioned in video above.

And here are more solar panels as I again approach to the Moapa Paiute reservation.

I arrived in Mesquite after driving 103.2 miles at 3.0 miles-per-kWh.

Unfortunately, two of the EA chargers wouldn't initiate a session, so here I have moved to a 3rd space. Unfortunately, that charger was also faulty, only hitting a peak of 64 kW when I plugged in, and predicting an 80% charge in 32 minutes.

While there —lo and behind— another camouflaged Hyundai EV9 showed up at these chargers (the same one that we saw there on the tail end of our last roadtrip?).

I only charged to 70%, knowing that I'd nonetheless have plenty of miles to make it home without taking more than my alloted 30 minutes of free charging.

I got out to ask if the driver of the camouflaged EV9 had been able to charge successfully. He hadn't. I confess that I snuck a photo of his charge port: he was indeed using a CCS1-to-J3400 adapter.

I now had 197 miles on the guess-o-meter.

As I descended from the summit, twilight was extending over the red cliffs behind our home.

I had driven 43.1 miles from Mesquite, at 2.9 miles-per-kWh, arriving home with 51% still in the battery.

This NDEW gathering was as fun as the others I have attended. I managed to chat with many attendees, perhaps because I offered folks some free drinks and popcorn, but I’d like to think they were attracted to Rocinante, inside and out. At least that’s what many folks told me. My only disappointment is that I didn’t get to see many of the other EV drivers that I’d met in the past. I particularly hoped to again greet the couple who own an i-MiEV, as they are obviously very early adopters, like me. If they did show up, I never spotted them. Perhaps the weather was just too hot to tempt many people to join us in that desert, as it did hit 103°F that afternoon. That might have also affected the number of participants. The NDEW webpage for Las Vegas stated that there were 66 EVs signed up for the EV’ent, but I suspect that the total number of those who showed up was about half that. Then again, maybe all the political propaganda against EVs had an affect on consumers’ interest. Dunno, but maybe by next year, after this deplorable election is over, we’ll see a resurgence of curiosity to learn what EVs have to offer. Let’s hope!

My introductory video en route to the gathering.
I am always amused when descending this road to pass the cast iron silhouettes of prospectors and their mule teams. These are the ones on the right side of the road.	And these are the ones that are even closer on the left side. I have to hand it to whoever created and set up these fun, life size images in this barren desert.
Here I have crossed from Arizona into Nevada and am entering Mesquite.	There are lots of casinos in Mesquite, probably serving the gamblers from Utah. I once stopped here at the Casa Blanca casino to recharge my LEAF from an RV outlet when driving to NDEW in 2014.
I was amused by this semi hauling motor boats. They had cut a slit in the plastic to allow the air to flow through, then stuck some eyes on the sides. I wish I'd taken a video, for the air was making the "lips" talk to passersby.	Here I am entering the towns of Glendale and Moapa, where I had stopped to charge from other RV outlets for my first NDEW in 2012 and again for NDEW in 2015./SPAN>
I am delighted that the Moapa Paiute tribe now has installed a large solar farm on the reservation to sell electricity to the nearby community of Overton, where I stayed overnight in a motel and charged from its lowly 120V outlet, both coming and going for NDEW 2013.	What I found particularly ironic —and irksome— was to see a train loaded with coal heading past the solar farm, probably going to Las Vegas. Ugh!
Here I am entering Las Vegas, heading to the Electrify America chargers near the Sam's Club store in north end of the city.
By the time I arrived at the chargers, all four spaces were occupied. Drat!	I had driven 114.7 miles from home to get there, averaging 3.6 miles-per-kWh. Not bad at all!
I took this video while waiting for one of the EVs to finish charging so that I could plug in.
Here I have now plugged in, putting all the kW that Rocinante can accept from these EA stations.
With 79% and 1 minute to go, Rocinante is still pulling an impressive 157 kW of power. The charging curve with Ioniq EVs is truly outstanding.	All done, with 276 miles on the guess-o-meter.
I then drove 15.1 miles to the Desert Breeze Community Center, and several other EVs were already there, getting ready for the EV’ent. You see that I had popped the lid of Rocinante's frunk to take out my V2L adapter.	I parked in a spot next to another Ioniq 5 and set up my table with some handouts, my electric refrigerator with drinks, and my popcorn popper, both plugged in to that Lectron V2L adapter. I figured this might be a good way to show off that feature of Rocinante.
Across from us was a long row of Teslas extending to the south…	…and to the north.
There were more participants on this side of the middle row of spaces.	And more on the opposite side.
I was curious to see how much power the V2L was pulling from the battery with both the refrigerator and the popcorn popper running: 1.4 kW, with 0.4 to spare. As you can image, the popper was the real energy hog.	Later that afternoon, I was delighted to run into Stan Hanel, who had headed up these NDEW EV'ents until just two years ago. I wish I'd had more time to chat with him and hear what he's been up to in retirement.
After a few hours, the EV'ent started to wind down, I packed up my paraphenalia, set the navigation to take me to the EA chargers in Mesquite, and recorded this video when leaving Las Vegas.
This is the speedway that I mentioned in video above.	And here are more solar panels as I again approach to the Moapa Paiute reservation.
I arrived in Mesquite after driving 103.2 miles at 3.0 miles-per-kWh.	Unfortunately, two of the EA chargers wouldn't initiate a session, so here I have moved to a 3rd space. Unfortunately, that charger was also faulty, only hitting a peak of 64 kW when I plugged in, and predicting an 80% charge in 32 minutes.
While there —lo and behind— another camouflaged Hyundai EV9 showed up at these chargers (the same one that we saw there on the tail end of our last roadtrip?).	I only charged to 70%, knowing that I'd nonetheless have plenty of miles to make it home without taking more than my alloted 30 minutes of free charging.
I got out to ask if the driver of the camouflaged EV9 had been able to charge successfully. He hadn't. I confess that I snuck a photo of his charge port: he was indeed using a CCS1-to-J3400 adapter.	I now had 197 miles on the guess-o-meter.
As I descended from the summit, twilight was extending over the red cliffs behind our home.	I had driven 43.1 miles from Mesquite, at 2.9 miles-per-kWh, arriving home with 51% still in the battery.