In honor of Drive Electric Week, we at WeaveGrid are reflecting on the last few weeks of industry news and events. We attended both the largest Auto Show in the U.S. and the largest clean energy conference North America. Our main takeaway? The electric transportation transition is inevitable! 

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Drive Electric Week

In its 12th year, Drive Electric Week runs from Friday, September 23 to Sunday, October 2 with nearly 300 online and in-person events celebrating electric vehicles. 

All over the US, EV drivers and dealers are volunteering their time and their vehicles to educate the public about driving electric and provide opportunities for test drives! It’s exciting to see many of our utility customers and automotive partners sponsoring events. 

Drive Electric Week is an annual event organized by Plug In America, Electric Auto Association, EVHybridNoire, and Sierra Club. 

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The North American International Auto Show in Detroit 

WeaveGrid made a splash at the Auto Show. We met with our Detroit-based Auto OEM partners and local teammates, exhibited in Plug and Play’s Startup Showcase, and tested out new EV models. We even caught a glimpse of President Biden! 

We knew EVs were going to be a big focus for this year’s Auto Show, but we were still thrilled to see just how many automakers were showing off their incredible new EV and PHEV models! 

Ford was running a speed track in their F-150 Lightning, Jeep took the Wrangler PHEV over a crazy obstacle course, and GM showed off the all-new Hummer EV built on their Ultium platform. So many people were crowded around these new models checking them out - including us. 

Oh and of course President Biden announced approval of the first $900 million in infrastructure money to build EV chargers across the national highway system. 

Auto OEMs are an incredibly important part of the transportation electrification transition and the work we do at WeaveGrid, so we’ll be back in Detroit in October for the Reuters Automotive USA and AutoTech Electrification events. Reach out here if you’d like to schedule a meeting!

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RE+ in Anaheim

In its first year in-person, RE+ became the largest energy event in North America with a record-breaking 27k+ people in attendance this year. The event moved away from its traditional solar and storage focus to cover a broad spectrum of decarbonization technologies and approaches. 

The conference featured a new Electric Drive section and it was clear that the need for an inevitability of transportation electrification is growing in the minds of the broader energy sector. 

Our Co-founder and CEO, Apoorv Bhargava, spoke with SEPA Senior Director of Electrification, Garrett Fitzgerald, in the PowerUp Central Media Zone to discuss our approach to utility partnerships and celebrate our winning of SEPA’s Utility Transformation Partner of the Year Award.

We attended valuable working sessions held by SEPA and other trade groups. A session that stood out was titled "What utilities need to do to reach EV targets by 2030" and featured utilities, automakers, and charging companies. Our Head of Product, Kyle Garton, also spoke about Delivering a Driver-Centric Managed Charging Experience in the Electric Drive Theater.

We were thrilled to attend and to see an increased focus on transportation electrification at the energy industry’s biggest event! 

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So there you have it! It’s been a busy but rewarding few weeks for the WeaveGrid team. 

Reflecting on Drive Electric Week, the Detroit Auto Show and RE+, it’s clear just how excited our three key stakeholders - EV Drivers, Auto OEMs, and Electric Utilities - are about and driving the future of electric transportation! ‍

We at WeaveGrid are ready to help ensure that the grid can handle all these EVs.