Our first meeting of 2023 – Happy New Year Rotarians!
President Courtney brought us to order with the ringing of the bell and led us through the Rotary 4 Way Test.
Our reflection was from Jeff Connell who given his military background spoke about the many meanings of the song Taps and recited the words to us. Our patriotic song was God Bless America.
Casey Jacobson circulated the microphone for the introduction of guests which included Rebecca Bahar Cook’s children, Ben and Sara; several guests who are considering joining the Club; a visitor from East Lansing Rotary; and several co-workers of today’s speaker among others. In all we had about a dozen visitors to set the year off to a great start.
Terry Terry introduced our special music for the day: Anthony Taylor who will be performing at Urban Beat. Mr. Taylor gave a resounding and spiritual rendition of America the Beautiful followed with the spiritual, Lord Will Make A Way Somehow.
Andi Earl shared the results of the December birthday appeal, netting $1475 for the foundation and all but a couple of folks participated.
Umakanth gave a great presentation on an International Grant to Kannagi Nagar Social Welfare Trust Project. It was a great presentation including photos of students benefiting from the grant and videos of them talking about the program and thanking Lansing Rotary for our contributions.
Our Chair of the Month and Chair of the Day, Jeff Crippen introduced our speaker, Karl Bloss, who gave us a lesson in “Electric Vehicles 101.”
Mr. Bloss brought the possibility of change into focus by a couple of examples – How many people have a Blackberry? The second example was a 1900 photo of a crowded New York City street where only one car could be seen followed by a 1913 photo of the same street where only one horse could be seen.
He shared very fascinating information about the differences between internal combustion engines (ICE) and battery electric vehicles (BEV). Some key points ICE cars have about 10,000 moving parts, while BEV cars have only about 150 parts. ICE cars are very inefficient and rely on all the excess energy in gas, while BEV cars use 80 to 90% of their energy in actually moving the car down the road.
BEV cars are less expensive to charge ($10 to $25 depending on location), compared to $37,50 for a comparable ICE car.
Mr. Bloss also talked about the reduced maintenance of BEV cars, even down to reduced brake pad use because of regenerative braking. And he addressed ways to find charging stations, though folks with power available at their home who drive locally will be able to do most of their charging overnight at home. In response to a question about towing, Mr. Bloss said BEVs have the power, but like with ICEs, more energy is used so careful planning is needed for longer trips.
Chris Swope's email is: chris.swope@lansingmi.gov