by: Bob McGlincy
The award-winning Electrify Expo returns in 2022 with five separate events spread across the country. Billed as “North America’s Largest E-Mobility Festival,” the event is a combination tradeshow and fan fest. Each show will comprise approximately a half million square feet of fun and excitement—a one-stop-shop for those looking to experience and learn about electric vehicles and related products. Attendees will have the opportunity to wander the grounds, as well as shop, view, drive, ride, and demo all types of electric vehicles, from cars and motorcycles, to e-bikes and scooters, e-skateboards, hoverboards, and even some e-surfboards.
According to BJ Birtwell, founder and producer, “Electrify Expo’s purpose is to drive adoption and purchase of electric vehicles, e-bikes, e-skateboards, e-scooters and other electric mobility products and services. Our festival is designed around offering experiences to consumers that allow them to make an informed purchase decision on-site in a hands-on, memorable and share-worthy way.”
The show occurred three times last year and drew more than 50,000 people. Then, last November in Las Vegas, Electrify Expo was presented with the prestigious “Expo of the Year” award at Impact21.
This year, the shows will be held in Los Angeles in June, Seattle in July, New York in August, Miami in October and Austin in November. There will be opportunities for closed course performance test drives (very few cars accelerate as quickly, with as much instant torque as an electric vehicle). Some of the electric brands displayed and driven on-site last year were BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Jeep, Mercedes, Mini, Polestar, Porsche, Volvo and VW. Additional brands include Audi, Chevrolet, Fisker, Ford, Jaguar, Lucid, Nissan, Rivian and Tesla.
Electric cars are nothing new. There were more electric vehicles at the New York Auto Show in 1901 than there were internal combustion engines. However they are not, and never have been, common. But that is about to change.
Consider these electrifying and fun facts:
- VW is investing $86 billion. Solely in terms of electric vehicles, VW expects to outsell Tesla in Europe by 2023.
- Toyota is investing $70 billion and expects to have 30 all-electric vehicles by 2030.
- Ford is investing $30 billion over five years and expects 40% of all new production models to be electric by 2030. (Ford has more than 200,000 preorders for the F-150 Lightning.)
- Nissan is investing $17 billion and expects to have 15 EVs by 2030.
- Hertz has ordered 100,000 Teslas for 2022 delivery.
- GM has promised 20 new EVs by the end of 2023.
- Atlas, Bollinger, Ford, Lordstown, Rivian, Tesla and possibly GMC expect to have electric trucks on the market in 2022.
- British Petroleum (BP) has stated that EV charging stations will prove more profitable than their current gas stations.
- Hyundai and Kia are all in for electric. They “have halted any further development of the internal combustion engine.”
If electric vehicles are the wave of the future, as many believe—and corporate investment dollars seem to confirm—then Electrify Expo might be the must-see event of 2022, and one that people should be racing to attend.
For Electrify Expo event details, visit www.electrifyexpo.com.
