From a stainless-steel Tesla Optimus to an electrical DeLorean, new Polestar EVs, and even a tail-sliding journey in a Ford Mustang Mach-E Rally, the final Electrify Expo of the 2024 season had one thing for everybody (particularly when you like Cybertrucks).
For the uninitiated, Electrify Expo is a kind of touring music competition — besides, as a substitute of assorted phases and bands, it units up a variety of distinctive tracks, road drives, and closed course “experiences” which are populated not by bands, however by the most recent EVs out of your favourite manufacturers. And this previous weekend, Electrify Expo closed out its 2024 season with a cease at Circuit of the Americas, and so they have been variety sufficient to ask me to test it out.
Right here’s the rundown.
So. Many. Cybertrucks.
Sure, it’s Texas. And sure, it’s an EV expo that highlights customized automobiles in the identical manner that Sizzling Import Nights did again within the 90s and early aughts. Nonetheless, nothing ready for the sheer variety of Tesla Cybertruck “tuner automobiles” on show.
Every thing from polished metal to rainbow wraps to off-roaders was there — one man even had a “digital exhaust” on his that sounded a bit like a anemic leaf blower. Past those proven right here (plus just a few extra), there have been one other dozen “plain Jane” Cybertrucks filling up sales space area for residence photo voltaic, EV charging tools, and prolonged guarantee corporations. Even Tesla had a half-dozen or so Cybertucks readily available for demo drives, permitting anybody with a driver’s license to take to the storied F1 circuit behind the wheel of Elon’s boxiest experience.
In case your solely publicity to automobiles was the Electrify Expo, you’d stroll away pondering they have been the best-selling automobiles on the earth.
Folks need Restomods to be a factor
These electrical DeLorean (multiple) and Subaru Brat initiatives most likely look acquainted to longtime Electrek readers, however whether or not they do or don’t they have been just some of the various EV conversions on show within the Electrify Showoff space that invited native EV homeowners to point out off their distinctive, electrified rides.
Extra shocking than the presence of so many Restomods at an occasion like this, nevertheless, was how adamant their builders have been that The Reply™️ to the issue of dangerous carbon emissions wasn’t constructing new EVs, however changing all (and so they imply all) the prevailing ICE automobiles into EVs.
Actually.
The OEMs
The actual purpose folks flock to Electrify Expo — and so they do, greater than 20,000 folks confirmed as much as the Austin occasion and that was certainly one of eight stops nationally — is to take a look at the most recent EVs from the OEMs.
To that finish, Porsche had its newest Macan EV, GMC had each the Hummer EV and Sierra Denali EV, Polestar had the 3 and 4 fashions on show, and Lucid even confirmed off an early manufacturing Gravity mannequin. A Rivian R2, new Lexus PHEV, and a stainless steel-skinned model of Optimus rounded out my favorites there — nevertheless it wasn’t nearly seeing these automobiles. It was about driving them.
See, not like a standard auto present the place you may stroll round some static automobiles and perhaps sit in them, Electrify Expo lets attendees truly drive these automobiles. Typically round a race monitor like COTA, typically on public roads, and typically on devoted “experiential” tracks purpose-built to showcase the automotive’s distinctive skills.
Should you’ve ever seen a dirt-focused impediment course with Jeeps operating round it at your native auto present, you get the thought. And, whereas the identical form of factor exists at Electrify, I’ve handy it to Ford for taking it to the subsequent stage with a brand new Mustang Mach-E Rally pushed by skilled driver on a closed, 90-second -ish rally course simply off the primary parking zone.
Ford set the tone
The very first thing most attendees noticed once they received to the occasion was an eerily quiet, high-speed show of lurid, tail-wagging slides courtesy of the brand new Ford Mustang Mach-E Rally. By 9AM on the second day, a full hour earlier than opening time, there was already a line forming to expertise the Mach-E. Such was the facility of the word-of-mouth and social media affect surrounding this occasion.
Having some rally expertise, I wasn’t fairly positive what to anticipate — however the quiet was surreal. In an ICE automotive doing stuff like this, the sound of the engine provides you some indication of what the driving force is doing. In an EV? Within the Mustang? You haven’t any thought. All you are able to do is strap in and really feel the gs, then let your mind kind out what occurred later.
And the remaining
While you’re an EV competition, you’re there to see all of it — from e-bikes and electrical scooters all the best way as much as one-off SEMA specials like Neil Tjin’s Mustang Mach-E, ultrafast Formila E racecars, a pack of BMW CE02 electrical bikes, a brand new Sur-Ron type e-bike from GoTrax, and even a Pickman micro truck.
Actually, when you ever get to certainly one of these, belief me — plan on spending the entire day there. In the event that they do it once more in 2025, I do know I’ll.
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