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Roberto Baldwin:
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Hello, I'm Roberto Baldwin and this is Tomorrow Today's Sustainable Mobility Brief.
The transportation world is evolving at a rate not seen in decades. The transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy has brought with it some truly exciting opportunities, but also some confusion. I'll sift through the noise and share quick updates on the latest news, trends and advancements that will impact our world for years to come this week on the Tomorrow Today Briefs podcast.
We have BJ Birtwell, founder of the Electrify Expo, North America's largest electric vehicle festival. This is a traveling festival. It's like Lollapalooza without Jane's addiction. So BJ let's start about let's talk about Electrify Expo and what it is and what you hope to accomplish with this festival.
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BJ Birtwell:
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Yeah. I was a car guy. This is how the Electrify Expo got started was because as a car guy, I grew up tweaking and tuning on cars, making them go faster and look cooler by putting parts on them and whatnot. And I always felt Hey, if I couldn't smell it, I couldn't hear it. And the vehicle probably lacked the soul.
That's exactly how I felt about electric cars. And I felt that way about electric cars up until the point I actually drove one. So I had made up my mind about electric cars before ever experiencing one. And then I drove one and I had my light bulb moment. And everything changed for me at that point.
It's I had this all wrong. These cars actually do have a soul. And for me as a car guy, that really resonated and it flipped my perception on how I look towards electric vehicles. And I figured, Hey, there's gotta be other people like me that are out there. My background is in producing large lab events, concerts, festivals live large motorsport experiences.
So we looked at the landscape of what was going on in the electric vehicle space, and we didn't see. See a lot out there. This is back in 2017 2018. And we put together electrify expo to really provide a million square feet of experiences for people to come out and have their own light bulb moment.
So that's not just electric cars and electric trucks, but it's also electric bikes and electric scooters, electric skateboards. In some cases, electric watercraft and really, giving people that opportunity to get behind the wheel of an electric car, get on the seat of electric bike and have that experience.
And that's been the switch, the, that light switch moment for a lot of people, cause it's not going to come from, a government mandate, it's not going to come from watching a TV commercial or reading something online for a lot of these people, they have to experience it in order to get it. And that's really what we're doing in Electrify Expo.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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Yeah, it's true. I grew up I grew up working on cars. That was the thing I did. And, I had all the car magazines, the subscription, the sport compact car magazine as a kid. I read Road and Track. I read Car and Driver. And the idea of driving something that didn't, again, didn't have that smell, didn't have that feel, didn't have that sound, felt weird.
And then as soon as you get into that, that first electric car, and it doesn't even, it could be a Nissan Leaf. You're just like Oh, now I get it.
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BJ Birtwell:
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Yeah, that's exactly how it's been. That's probably my most rewarding experience in producing. The festival is watching skeptics come into the event, because this is a ticketed event.
So people actually paying money to come buy a ticket and to come have these experiences. And we're at that point now in the in the life stage of the industry where in this first wave of consumer, that was really all about sustainability. Or consumers that had a more of an eco-conscious mindset. Like they've made their decision to go electric.
A lot of them came to Electrify Expo in 2021 and 2022. We've that wave of consumer has made their decision to go electric. So in 23 and 24, we started to see a whole new different type of consumer come into our festival. And these were the everyday American who just wanted to come check out this whole electric thing.
And then there was also the skeptic, which is, who I was. And so I'm watching, the skeptic come into the, to the event. And have an experience, for example, like this is an extreme example, but, they're hopping into a Tesla model plaid and going zero to 68, 1. 9 seconds. And, they're coming out of that car and you can just see it on their face.
It's they've converted like right there on the spot. They had no idea what that, this was going to happen to them. And, not everybody is pulled into the industry because of the thrill factor of these vehicles, but many are we're really providing that experience and turning the tide.
We'll produce over 250, 000 demo rides this year. And most of those are, with people who are having first time experiences, and these experiences are converting them to go electric. So it's a really great thing to be a part of and to watch how Electrify Expo is driving broader EV adoption.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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Yeah, no, that's true. I think everyone who's already decided they're doing this for eco reasons. They're already there. You're preaching to the choir at that point. If you're, if you just keep saying ecologically, the, the earth, et cetera, climate change, they already understand that it's the regular people are like why.
But beyond that, I could still, I need to get around. And I think there, there was the old Simpsons episode where there was an electric car and it was underpowered and it was wimpy and they're not that at all.
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BJ Birtwell:
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No, but that's what we've been conditioned to understand. Electric cars would be at least people who are not EV advocates, like the EV advocates and the EV enthusiasts, they know all about these vehicles. They know all about the battery tech. They know where the battery tech is going in the next three to five years. Like it's very exciting. But for most people, they're coming into electrify expo with two, three, sometimes five-year-old understandings of what electric cars were. And so it's like this whole reeducation process. Oh yeah, these cars actually can have upwards of 400 mile plus of range. They can charge very quickly. And its brain and the heads are exploding. Minds are exploding because they had no idea.
I think that the whole comms I set the comms idea the communications and the messaging around electric cars is going through a major shift as well. Unfortunately, it's not happening quick enough. Like for example, you bring up the environment, my position on this is the more that we make EVs about climate change.
The more that we slow EV adoption because the consumer that's coming into the EV world now They're not coming into the EV world for environmental reasons for the most part Fortunately the byproduct of buying an electric car is that there are some very positive environmental Benefits to owning one but that's not their reason for buying.
And it was in 2018 and 19 and 20 people were certainly coming into the industry because they wanted to have a Positive impact on the environment, right? Okay. That's gone and so now That's, we've pretty much gone through that wave of consumer. We have to change our messaging into more traditional types of messaging, which is, okay what are the features and benefits of this vehicle?
What is the price point? How is it competitive with gas cars? Like these easy questions to answer. We're all doing this Electrify Expo and people are being reeducated there, I guess is the right way to put it. So it's been fun to watch that. It's important. Important that we stop making EVs about the climate.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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And what percentage do you think of your attendees are EV owners versus like the EV cures and are EV owners bringing their friends? Or is just like someone showing up in a, a Jeep Cherokee? Let me see what this is all about. I got a free weekend. I'm interested in e-bikes. Maybe I'll take a ride in a car. What kind of sort of percentage are you seeing right now at the expo?
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BJ Birtwell:
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It's typically 80 to 85 percent don't own an EV. There's, 15 to 20 percent of the people there who do own an EV and they might be looking for, they might have a plugin hybrid and they might be looking to go fully electric at this point because plugins are a great way to get familiar with how the electric world works and what plugging in looks like.
But for the most part, these are people who have never owned an electric vehicle and have no idea how an electric. Car works or how it fits in their lifestyle. And so it's mostly newbies.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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That's, that's really cool because you're giving people a place to go where they feel a little bit safer. They don't feel pressured. I think right now, if you want to drive an EV, you're, you feel like you have to go to a dealership, which now you have to deal with the dealership model, which is the dealers are there to sell things. Yeah. Or an auto show.
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BJ Birtwell:
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Even auto shows the same way. This is a festival. You painted it as like Lollapalooza meets CES type thing. That's very much what it is because it is all things electric. And when you talk about electric, you can't. Help, but also talk about, battery tech or EV chargers, or even autonomous vehicles, and these other things that kind of surround the electric vehicle world.
So you really do immerse yourselves into a lot of technology and a lot of fun things to look at. It's been a lot of light bulb moments happening with this new wave of consumer who is just trying to understand what it means to go electric.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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Cool. And the expo is more than just EVs. I went last year. You have more cycles, you have e bikes are huge. I think, I see more and more on the road every day. The people buying e bikes as they're almost probably their main source of getting around town just because traffic, et cetera. So can we talk a little bit about like other forms of electrification in the world of transportation?
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BJ Birtwell:
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Yeah. When you walk into an Electrify Expo, it's a million square feet of just Live activity everywhere because there's experiences everywhere So like when you walk into an auto show and you're inside a convention center and there's big Walls on each side and you have cars on display behind velvet ropes.
Like this is the antithesis of that, right? So it's like open air outdoor music blast in Food trucks. If this is a festival environment made for families, we have a huge kid zone where kids can experience electric cars and trucks. But when you walk in, there's just demo zones everywhere. So you talked about e bikes.
And I think we have three or four different e bike zones, right? Because there's different classes of e bikes. So if you go to a class one or class two e bike, you're on this course and these are like pedal assist e bikes. And then you go to a throttle or a class three bike. We have a high-speed e bike zone.
In some cases we have, zones for dirt. Or for electric mountain bikes. So yeah, there really are zones everywhere for everything. You mentioned electric motorcycles, which I'm really excited about. It looks like 2025 is going to be a breakout year for some of the legacy motorcycle manufacturers to start bringing their electric motorcycles online.
So really expect that to grow, but also just power sports in general, electric side by sides. Electric personal watercraft. Those are all featured, electric boats. Those are all featured there at Electrify Expo. And in some cases, we actually have demo zones when we're on the water for those watercraft.
But yeah, you come in to Electrify Expo and you can pretty much whip anything around a demo zone. There's nobody looking over your shoulder, pressuring you to buy today. Although in many cases, people do people transact right there on site. We had an an e bike manufacturer in long beach, just one e bike manufacturer.
They did over 200, 000 in sales in one day. It's people are coming to electrify Expo to try stuff before they buy stuff. So it's definitely a kind of a an EV shopper, a mid-purchase funnel consumer who really wants to experience something before they buy it. And so just demo zones galore.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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So what you're saying is if you're going to the electrified expo, get there early, you want to be first in line or at least third.
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BJ Birtwell:
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Yeah. We've been known to have queue lines that, that can be long, but I think the good thing also is that like our manufacturer count is growing. In, in 2021, we had five auto manufacturers participating, today, we have 20 auto manufacturers participating and then, in, in places like Long Beach and other more mature markets, we'll have upwards of, 75 to 100 e bike brands, e bike manufacturers that are there. And so there's just a lot to look at. And I think that when you have more manufacturers, there's more to look at the lines or the lines are they move quicker?
But there's just something to do for everybody. So I watched families come in and, dad might be looking at a motorcycle and mom might be looking at an electric car and, the kids can go hop in the kid zone and they can have great food. So we're really just trying to create, I don't know, and I don't really like the comparison to auto shows, but we had a, I had a guy walk up to me in Denver, we just got out of our Denver show. And he's man, he's this thing is so cool. This is auto show 2. 0 and I'm like, yeah, it is auto show 2. 0. It's just, it's all things transportation beyond cars, but it's a really fun way. And if you're more like, if you're on the engineering side of this, there's a lot to geek out on because there's so much fun technology and innovation happening in this industry.
You can just look at dive into this industry and you can see all of the innovation happening amazing entrepreneurs who are coming with new products and new technology. That's reshaping how we look at going electric How fast these batteries charge how far these batteries can take you in terms of range?
And then just what's happening with battery tech overall and where we're at today with what type of minerals we're using in these batteries So what might be coming two three four years down the road with solid state technology? So it's just it's a really interesting Fun time. Interesting time to be involved in the industry.
And I think from an engineering standpoint too, there's just a lot of significant growth that's good. It's coming down the pike.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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Cool. Cool. And those engineers, I'm sure you show, if you're an engineer and you show up at an event and there's an engineer from a company, they're going to be super excited to talk to you.
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BJ Birtwell:
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Yeah, we get a lot of engineers. And engineering folk, either from the manufacturers or people who are just in the industry coming to check it out because there's a lot of also job opportunities with these new companies. You have the legacy manufacturers that are there, but as this industry is bubbling with startups and early stage companies that are growing and they're bursting at the seams.
They need new engineers, and they have these different departments that are growing so we do see a lot of people coming in and looking at the job opportunities And engineering opportunities at the expo.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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Excellent. Excellent. So now you have eight shows a year this year, correct?
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BJ Birtwell:
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Yeah, we travel around we started with three. We're now at eight festivals a year We pretty much follow EV registration data and we hit the markets that we know we see our heat maps for hand raisers For people who say, hey, I'm interested in going electric. And so we go to LA and San Francisco, we had to Seattle and go to Denver, we're in New York and in Florida and in Austin.
We have some new markets that we're gonna be peppering in next year and the festival just continues to grow as the adoption continues and it's. It's been an interesting year for electric cars overall for a couple of different reasons. One, we're in an election year, so anything's possible in an election year, in terms of, what candidates say or don't say about electric cars, or what mandates are rolled out or rolled back, or what incentives are rolled out or rolled back.
That's, it’s very obvious that it gets a little muddy in an election year. But, after November and when the dust starts to settle and messaging can focus in on, okay, what's really happening with this industry, what type of incentives are going to be there. And by the way, I'm not a fan of mandates at all.
I really feel like electric cars need to duke it out. In a free market with gas cars and just let the consumers decide on whether or not they want to go electric. I think the faster we can get there the faster we can get more skeptics into the show because Americans don't want to be told what to do.
They don't want to be told what to drive. That's probably another conversation for another day, but it's important. But once we get past November and we let the dust settle, I think we'll settle into a whole new wave of adoption. That's going to happen here. And the automakers have done a great job too.
Automakers have online so many models. That were not available three, four years ago. This was pretty much a one-horse race three to four years ago. And now just look at how many models there are. So automakers done a great job of bringing new vehicles to market. And there's more to come.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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Cool. Cool. Now you have four shows left this year. What are, where are they? And what are the dates of the remaining shows?
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BJ Birtwell:
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So we're coming into our San Francisco show, which is a huge show that we do August 24th and 25th. So we definitely invite people out to that. It's a great experience. Big show.
And then we head over to, or we head up to Seattle and then over to New York and then we finished in Austin in November. So if you go to electrifyexpo.com, you can see our dates. So I definitely invite you there and if you live local in those areas or you're ready to make a little trek, we invite you out and get to experience all things electric.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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Awesome. Thank you so much, BJ. Really appreciate it.
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BJ Birtwell:
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Welcome. Thanks for having me, Roberto. Appreciate it.
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Roberto Baldwin:
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For more information about the evolution of sustainability, head on over to SustainableCareers. sae. org. And if you're not quite ready to add an EV to your household, you can check out our plug-in hybrid explainer video to help bring you up to speed on the hybrid technology and the vehicles.
Be sure to subscribe and listen every week. Every week on your favorite podcast platform, SAE International makes no representations as to the accuracy of the information presented in this podcast. The information and opinions are for general information only. SAE International does not endorse, approve, recommend, or certify any information, product, process, service, or organization presented or mentioned in this podcast.
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