Mt Hamilton Hill climb - June 7th San Jose, CA - w/ PHOTOS

Calling all FFE owners in the San Jose area -

Let's get together for a drive up Mt Hamilton to the James Lick Observatory on Saturday June 7th, 2014. (http://www.ucolick.org/public/visitors.html)

We can meet at the RHV airport off Capitol Expressway (there is a free level 2 charge station in the parking lot by the terminal - see plugshare or similar apps for how to find the charge station).

We will aim to roll out by 9am for the 19 mile drive up to the peak at 4,200 ft (about 5,000 total elevation gain as we will pass through two valleys on the way up).

Once at the top we can check out the views and the visitors center. For those that don't know, Mr. Lick made his fortune buying up SF real estate from people who left for the gold rush. Having no heirs, he left his fortune to the University of California and asked them to build what would be come the first ever permanent mountain top observatory. It also houses one of the largest refractor telescopes ever built, and Mr. Lick is buried under the main telescope.

Of course there will be plenty of discussion regarding FFE tips, tricks, mods, etc and it will be a great chance to put faces to some of the screen names and share ownership experiences.

For those that need to charge up before heading home, there are plenty of restaurants and charge stations in downtown San Jose, and it's quite likely we may all wind up at the same watering hole.

Please post your intentions to join in this thread so we will know to look for you, though no RSVP is required. Other, non FFE EV's welcome too. If you need more info, please feel free to PM me or post your question here.

Cheers,
Mark

Hey that is the same date as the "EV Sociability Run" out on the East coast:
http://www.pluginrally.org/2014-wv-ev-sociability-run/

Sounds like fun (both)...just can't get my FFE to either place in time...

June 7 is good for me. Sign me up!

See you all at 9 at Reid Hillview Airport.
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/wq5zU

There are lots of charging stations around 4th and Santa Clara streets.

JimB_FFE said:

See you all at 9 at Reid Hillview Airport.

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I assume we are meeting in the airport parking lot? (Located at the west end of Cunningham Avenue.)

If we want to "roll out" at 9am, I would suggest everyone aim to be at the airport by 8:45 or earlier. And maybe somebody (TexaCali?) could temporarily place an orange cone (or something) on top of their FFE to indicate the "front of the convoy", so other arriving cars can situate accordingly in the parking lot, ready for a smooth roll-out.

Also, should we check if assembling an "electro-mob" at either the airport or observatory will be okay? If we have three EVs, then likely there will be no problem, but if we have 30, some feathers could be ruffled.

Even 30 EVs will be darn quiet though!

well as far as I know we only have 3 confirmed at the moment, but 30 would be awesome!

Just checking to see if any others plan to attend?

Please drop me a PM if you think you might attend so we a) know to look for you and b) can make preparations should there be a large number of participants. Both the airport and the observatory have plenty of space, so even if we have a dozen or more it won't be an issue. At the moment I believe we have 3.

I will be there well before 9 AM. Looking forward to meeting some fellow FFE enthusiasts and visiting the observatory!

I cannot be there for that event, but have 2 comments.
1. SFO airport has "free" charging (which is more likely to be available at the international terminal), but parking is EXPENSIVE there.
How does that compare with San Jose parking?

2. I shall be interested to read if any of you feel somewhat as I did, when I went up & down Mt. Tam here (a bit NW of San Francisco). The climb to the parking area was about 2,000 feet, and posed no problem for the car; a cool feeling of power, and the miles seemed less of a problem than expected as many of them were at relatively low speed.
But, at least for my vision, the narrow winding road made me a bit nervous, because I had a less-clear sense of how close I was to the guard rail in the FFE compared to my previous drives (Honda hatchbacks).

JTCalif said:

1. SFO airport has "free" charging (which is more likely to be available at the international terminal), but parking is EXPENSIVE there.
How does that compare with San Jose parking?

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To be clear, we are meeting at a GA airport called Reid Hill View (RHV), not the commercial SJC airport. Parking at RHV is free, as is the charge station.

As to vision and clearance, I've been driving a big diesel truck for the past few years, and the one time I had the FFE on a twisty hill climb I had no issues knowing where the car was. I agree, the front end is not visible from the drivers position as is sadly the case with most cars these days, but it is soo much smaller than my truck that I wasn't worried.

JTCalif said:

But, at least for my vision, the narrow winding road made me a bit nervous, because I had a less-clear sense of how close I was to the guard rail in the FFE compared to my previous drives (Honda hatchbacks).

Click to expand...

Heheh... I find that, when parking my FFE, I'm often much further away from whatever I'm parking in front of than it seemed from inside the car.

Rear camera FTW.

JimB_FFE said:

Rear camera FTW.

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Haha... yeah, sometimes I quickly flip to R and check the camera to make sure my butt isn't hanging out of the spot. Either that, or try to line up my side mirrors with the other car.

Front parking sensors would be cool though.

Just a quick report, I'll try to get pictures up later today...

We had 3 FFE's at RHV airport this morning - JimB_FFE's, Wattsup's, and mine. JimB has a log off all the numbers (plus some battery temps), but here is the quick run down:

We all reset our trip meters at RHV but had various states of charge (I was 100%). Upon reaching the observatory I showed 49% battery remaining, 513 wh/mile, and 9.9kwh used with 19.3 miles traveled. JimB and I had similar numbers with Wattsup showing slightly higher (due to having a passenger). The moment we pulled into the parking lot I jumped out and measured front tire temps on all 3 cars and all showed 100 F +-0.5 deg (remember I have wider tires of a different compound, so this was an attempt to see if one tire was deforming more and generating more heat and rolling resistance).

After enjoying the views, talking about EV's, touring the observatory (and trying to pan handle the cyclists at the top for AA batteries so we could get back home) we headed down. At the bottom we each went separate ways so we unfortunately won't be able to make a meaningful comparison of the regen data, but at one point my battery had gone back up to 59% and the computer thought I was going to get 157 miles on the remaining charge! :lol:

Once back home I showed 44.6 miles for the entire trip (up and down) with 55% battery remaining and a 209 wh/mile average for the trip and 9.3 kwh used. I can't speak for the others, but I thought the FFE was a joy to drive and handled the narrow twisty roads like a champ. In fact, on the way down I had to pass a Prius, and was quite impressed how quickly and smoothly it accelerated and silently blasted by the gasser when I pressed the "Go" pedal.

Stay tuned for pictures and more data.....

Cool! +1

And here are a few quick photos to prove we really did it!

Here is the gang starting at RHV airport:



My trip meter at the top:

The FFE's at the observatory over 4,000 ft above the bay area:

And finally, the 36" refractor telescope:

Oh, and here is the trip meter back home at the end of the journey:

I love the guess-o-meter variation you saw today. From 19 miles on half a battery to 142 miles on half a battery lol :lol:

Thanks for the pics, very cool. Are the two white FFEs both the same white? Are they Oxford or Platinum?