Caltech EV Club

On January 21, 2011, Rob Ferber and Linda Maepa of ElectronVault Co. came to the Caltech campus to demonstrate a production model of a highly efficient electric scooter and discuss some of the other efforts in process at their firm. This was sponsored by the Caltech Electric Vehicle Club (CEVC).

They were coming here from the Bob Hope Classic golf tournament at Palm Springs where they had demonstrated a solar powered media tent along with the scooter. As a result they arrived around 3PM in the afternoon so the attendance was less than we had hoped. However Mr. Farber allowed me to video record his presentation (you may need to download Quicktime to view it) and post it on our website.

I was certainly glad I did. Despite his protests of not being a good speaker, it was a masterful presentation. He gave a brief overview of modern electric vehicle production as a business and laid out his company’s plan to further world market penetration of this important technology. He also discussed grid storage and interfacing, and discussed briefly his patented improvement of the efficiency of electric motors for vehicles.

There were test rides of the production model scooter. During my test drive I drove it very hard then touched the motor casing immediately afterwards. It was cool to the touch, attesting to the truth of his efficiency claims.

Present on the video are Rob Ferber, the main presenter, Linda Maepa, also of ElectronVault, her father, "Nape" Maepa, former minister of telecommunications of South Africa, Hongin Tan, a Caltech grad student working on lithium ion batteries and member of the CEVC, and myself, John Klemic, not shown but interrupting with questions from time to time. Last, but not least, Professor Joe Kirschvink of Caltech’s Geology Department is seen taking the first test drive of the scooter.