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By Jed Nelson

Featuring food trucks, local exhibitors, and electric bikes and cars, event goers were granted the opportunity to learn about and test drive electric vehicles at Riverland Community College’s campus Thursday. 

Recharge America, a non-profit organization whose goal is to promote local economic development through community-wide emerging electric technologies, partnered with Riverland Community College and Austin Utilities to put on the Recharge Austin event. 

“Riverland Community College was a part of Recharge Albert Lea a few years ago and it was a great experience,” RCC’s Dean of Academic Affairs in Career and Tech fields Kim Nelson said. “Austin Utilities was approached by Recharge to have an event here in Austin, so we partnered up with them to bring an event to the Austin campus.” 

Nelson went on to state how many of the programs Riverland offers are automotive and that there is a huge electric vehicle presence in those programs. 

“We have an EV (electric vehicle) fleet of a couple vehicles, and we work with our partnered dealers in the area,” she said. “This is a way for us to give our students, our future technicians, experience with EV’s.”

Late last summer, Riverland and Austin Utilities discussed what it would look like to bring a Recharge event to Austin. 

“When we met with Recharge America, we discussed all the possible opportunities to bring an event here,” Austin Utilities General Manager Mark Nibaur said. “We ended up being selected, which is great because they only select a certain number of communities to do this.” 

Not only does the event benefit students at Riverland, but it also helps the community by raising money for a couple of local organizations. Money raised by test driving both electric bikes and cars will go towards the Salvation Army Energy Assistance Program and the Robotics team at Austin High. 

“For anybody that test drives a bike or a car, a $25 donation goes into the pool,” Nelson said. 

Total earnings of the event are aimed at being $10,000, as both Riverland and Austin Utilities had to raise $5,000 to help fund the event, with a $5,000 match from Recharge America.

“Austin Utilities very much promotes energy efficiency in the electric vehicle market,” Nibaur said. “This event was a great collaboration between Riverland, Austin Utilities, and Recharge America.” 

With electric vehicles becoming more and more popular, Fernanda Estrada of Recharge America said that EV’s are here to stay.

“EV’s cost less to maintain,” she said. “Electric cars have only 20 moving parts, while gas powered cars have 2,000. Plus, they are more friendly to the environment.” 

With Minnesota working toward adding more electric vehicle charging stations and infrastructure, it’s looking that EV’s could continue to grow in popularity.