Eric Powers did a great job coordinating hybridfest and gathering a superb group of volunteers. I don't know how it was behind the scenes, but from my vantage point it looked like it went pretty smoothly.

It was great meeting people that came from all over the country. And realy great to have met people from GreenHybrid that I would never have met personally if it wasn't for HybridFest.

The Toyota exhibit was the most fun, but the other exhibits weren't far behind. Having it coordinated the same time as the Dane county fair is great as I could play with my wife and kids at the fair for a few hours in the day as well.

I don't know what the count was of hybrids there, but it was quite fun parading them in through the fair for all to see. I'm sure many hybrids were sold because of this effort.

The media was all over hybridfest. I think Good Morning America will be doing a short piece this morning (7/23/07).

If anyone ever questions the good that comes out of hybridfest I am seriously going to question their sanity. I heard someone walking past the modified hybrid section admiring all the "sports cars."

My goal next year is to be the very first person to register for Hybridfest 2008.

 

Someone must know how many cars showed up.

 

Eric, can you give us a number.

It was hard to count since the cars were scattered in groups around the fair.

When we were all parked at the hotel it looked like 80% of the cars there were hybrids. Kind of a taste of things to come for this country I think.

 

There were over 150 hybrid cars on site again this year.
Some people flew in.

Not all cars owners chose to be in the Hybridfest Hybrid Car Owners Showcase, plus we had some space restrictions, so in the showcase we had around 80 total.

 

I've got to agree with Tom, this really blew me away; it really was like a trade show/Auto Show. Almost like the best of NAIAS and Chicago.

I've got getting the highway miles necessary to get a flashlight from Toyota's Highway of the Futurer down to an art now. If it's empty, I could probably do it in under a minute and a half.

Being the co-owners of the hour I think Debbie, Gary, and I opened a lot of minds about what having a hybrid can really mean, while in the CleanMPG booth, there were a lot of non-hybrid owners there looking to talk about technology and improving their FE. Despite what any survey says about FE ranking lower than cupholders in what they want in a vehicle, I think it's very much at the forefront of the average American.

Having the other booths also were great, like Northern Sun T-shirts (If that's not them, then whoever it was near Scangauge with the clothing), and the other booths that weren't necessarilly Hybrid oriented, but it helped make it seem more like a fun show rather than an indoctrination room. Plus, I know at least one member who got a nice kitty T-shirt out of it.

I even got to enjoy the State Fair a bit, and being "part" of it was pretty darn cool. It was neat to walk around there with the nice lanyard like I was somebody.

If next year is half as good as this years, it'll be a great show.

Lastly, if you're reading this, didn't go, and could've, shame on you. You missed The Hybrid Experience of the Year.

 

I had such a great time. I loved getting to meet and talk with other hybrid owners in person. There was a real feeling of hybrid family. Waving to each other during the driving clinic. When I was leaving Sunday someone said "don't drive faster than 55." It was nice being around people who understand.

I hope I can make it back again next year. After doing the driving clinic with Justin and getting 105 mpg I feel like I'd now have a chance in the mileage competition.

 

Hi,

I know it is nice to meet folks and no doubt hyper-driving is fun. But my interests are technical.

The ABC news report gave some technology info but more of layman's introduction. Were there any technical sessions or presentations that caught your attention . . . say Hobbit's hand crank transaxle?

I'm most interested in any lay folks showing up with interesting mods. Was there a swap meet?

Bob Wilson

 

There were a few technical presentations. I think there was one on the prius battery innards as well. The cool thing is that you could pick the brain of people like Hobbit and Mike D and others that attended. So as well as actual presentations the people were there to talk all weekend if you had questions or wanted info. I think Hobbit spend all Saturday next to his car talking tech with who ever dropped by.

Hybridfest is much better than just presentations because most of the times 10 minutes after the presentation you never see the person again. Hybridfest was a whole weekend + some where you had access to these technical types.