The Cascadia Center along with Microsoft, United States Department of Transportation, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency and others are sponsoring the fifth annual TransTech Conference.  The theme of this year’s conference is “Beyond Oil:  Transforming Transportation” and will be held on September 4 and 5th at the Microsoft Executive Conference Center in Redmond, Washington.

Conference History
In the past, the conference looked at the future of plug-in hybrids, which was followed the next year by announcement of plug-in hybrids by major auto manufacturers including Toyota (plug-in Prius) and General Motors (the Chevy Volt).  According to the 2008 conference brochure, “This year, we will move beyond concepts and announcements to discuss how to transform transportation–how to move beyond oil.”

Keynote Address
From the official conference press release, “Shai Agassi, founder of Project Better Place, will give Friday’s keynote address. Mr. Agassi and the Israeli government have agreed to test concepts for moving the entire country away from oil in transportation through wide-scale implementation of electric cars.”

Presenters
The conference will feature many well-known members of the transportation and energy sectors as well as government figures.  Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff and former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey will all attend.

Slade Gorton, co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Transportation Policy Project, V2Green co-founder David Kaplan and Dr. Bill Rogers of the Idaho National Laboratory and Andy Frank (called the father of the plug-in hybrid) are slated to speak during the two-day conference.

Alternative Fuel Vehicles on Display
A conference on reducing the United States’ reliance on oil would be incomplete without a bevy of non-oil reliant vehicles on display.  The conference will feature a Toyota RAV4 EV, Ford Ranger EV, the ZENN Motor Car and even a Chelan County school bus that has been converted to a plug-in electric.

The Green Motorist readers who are interested in attending the conference can register on the Cascadia Project website.  Registration fees are $95 for both September 4 and 5, $35 for September 4 only and $65 for September 5 only.  The conference organizers have also offered a reduced $65 rate for non-profit members that would like to attend both days of the conference.

Subscribe

Filed Under: Conferences, electric cars

If you enjoyed reading this article... Subscribe to Our Feed