For the fourth year in a row, visitors from across the Bay Area and beyond had the chance to get up close and personal with the latest products in transportation and mobility, spread out across nearly one million square feet of space along Seaplane Lagoon on August 22 and 23.
[1]Formerly known as “Electrify Expo [2],” event organizers rebranded this year to “Demo Days Festival [3]” to show off “every powertrain, every vehicle, every category” in an effort to “let people experience everything back to back and decide for themselves,” the event website promised. Attendees zipped around on electric skateboards, bicycles, and scooters, and also got to speak with popular vehicle vendors and learn from experts about electrification and conversions.
“I think it matches my personality,” chuckled Pete D., a Clayton resident who occasionally volunteers at Crown Beach, as he stepped out of a shiny Toyota GR86 Premium on display. He admitted his current car is a 20-year-old Toyota Prius, and that although the speed, drifting ability, and high performance of the GR86 appealed to him, he chalked it up to just wishful thinking for now.
“Quiet, peppy, fast, and comfortable” were words Colin and Morgan Drake, who came from San Rafael, used to describe their experience on an electric motorcycle from HMP Bikes. They own standard motorcycles but wanted to see what zero-emission alternatives were available, and were impressed by the FLASH’s handle and design.
[4]It was just this exposure and reaction that manufacturers like Droyd, a Southern California-based manufacturer of electric “rideables,” were hoping to elicit from curious passersby. Droyd’s Marketing Director Rachel Kao told the Alameda Post that the company is showing off its new electric dirt bike so that customers here in the Bay Area can get outside and bring it to the many recreational outposts in the region. Though the bike’s top speed is 42 mph, Kao warned that it is “technically not street legal” and that because the product’s target demographic is teenagers, the company has included strict language and warning labels to indicate as such.
As with years past, the most popular section of the event was the “Auto Alley Demo Zone,” where attendees could line up to test-drive the latest vehicles from leading auto manufacturers, including Toyota, Tesla, Rivian, Kia, Hyundai, and others. Unlike previous years, which featured exclusively electric vehicles (EVs), visitors could select from a mix of hybrids and EVs. Other popular manufacturers such as Volvo, Ford, and Polestar, which were mainstays of previous events, were also absent this year.
[5]The Demo Days Festival is on a nationwide tour and makes its next stop in Atlanta in October.
Ken Der is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post [6]. Contact him via [email protected] [7]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Ken-Der [8].