Benicia Community Sustainability Commission member Kathy Kerridge charges her Chevrolet Volt in her driveway. In honor of National Drive Electric Week, the CSC will be hosting an electric vehicle showcase at the farmers market Thursday, in which patrons can view the cars and ask questions of electric vehicle owners. (Photo by Nick Sestanovich)

Next week, the Benicia Certified Farmers Market will be getting a little electric. Electric vehicles, that is.

National Drive Electric Week is Sept. 10 through 18. The celebration was founded in 2011 as National Plug In Day as a way to host events across the country touting the benefits of electric vehicles. The event became so huge that it was later expanded to an entire week. The national organizers include Plug In America, The Sierra Club and the Electric Auto Association. Such nationwide events include electric car parades, “tailpipe-free” tailgate parties, launches of new electric vehicle charging stations and more. The Benicia Community Sustainability Commission will be hosting two events that week. One is a screening of the 2006 documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 14 at the Benicia Public Library. The other is an electric vehicle showcase at the farmers market the following day.

This is not the first time that the Community Sustainability Commission has exhibited electric vehicles. The group had booths set up promoting such vehicles as the Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S at Benicia Middle School’s Mini Maker Faire in April. The electric vehicles were on display, and owners were on hand to answer questions.

“We had a steady stream of people all day,” BSC commissioner Kathy Kerridge said. “There were a lot of people interested, and because we had drivers there, people could answer questions on what their own personal experience has been, which I think was really helpful.”

The Volt and Leaf will be returning for the farmers market showcase and will be joined by the Fiat 500e. As with the Mini Maker Faire, electric vehicle owners will be available to answer questions about the automobiles but attendees will not be able to test drive them. However, Kerridge believes the showcase will spark enough curiosity for patrons to go to their local automotive dealers and test the cars out for themselves.

“Once people actually drive these cars, they fall in love with them,” she said. “If we can get people interested enough to go out and do a test drive, I think you have people start making their next car electric.”

What are the benefits of owning an electric vehicle? Kerridge, who owns a Volt, believes the more appropriate question is “What aren’t the benefits of having an electric vehicle?”

“That car gets about 40 miles on electricity, and then it can switch to a gas-powered generator. It gives great flexibility, and my husband drives it to work, he plugs in at work and drives it home,” she said. “We don’t have any kind of range anxiety. It has the range of a normal car once the battery has been used up, even given that about 85 percent of the miles we’ve driven on that car have been purely electric.”

Although charging stations are not always easy to come by, Kerridge says the Volt keeps a good charge by plugging it in to an outlet at her house overnight.

“I go to gas stations so seldom I can never remember where my gas tank is,” she said.

Among other benefits Kerridge cited were instant acceleration, lower carbon emissions and simply being much cheaper to operate than traditional petroleum-based vehicles.

“You’re paying the equivalent of less than a dollar for a gallon of gas,” she said. “You have a whole lot less in maintenance costs. There are a whole lot of things that you have to maintain in a car with an internal combustion engine that you don’t have to maintain in an EV.”

Although electric vehicle technology was slow to take off and be accepted by the public, Kerridge believes it is the future of transportation.

“At this point in time, the question has become not ‘Why drive electric?’” she said. “The question is now ‘Why would you want a gas car?’ because electric vehicles have so many advantages.”

“This is one of the most significant things I can do to have clean air,” she added.

The electric vehicle showcase will be featured from 4 to 8 p.m., Thursday Sept. 15 at the farmers market, which takes place at the south end of First Street. For more information on National Drive Electric Week, visit driveelectricweek.org.

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