Greenstage gathers host of electric vehicles

Greenstage gathers host of electric vehicles in Auckland’s Newton valley

Auckland, 8 November 2012 – Car-loving Aucklanders can plug into the future at the Greenstage Gathering of electric vehicles, at 19 Newton Road in Auckland on Sunday November 18th, starting at 10:00 am. They will admire, inspect and possibly ride in a range of commercially produced and New Zealand made electric vehicles – including the Greenstage GS750V, a lithium-powered electric race car in a Saker GT chassis, and one of the first Tesla Roadsters imported into New Zealand. And they can learn from the owners and inventors about this exciting emerging market.

The Greenstage Gathering will feature many other leading innovations in electric vehicle design currently being developed in New Zealand, including the Switch EV Ute from Peter Sewell, the Scott Drive powered Honda Prelude, Vik Oliver’s RepRep 3-D manufacturing toolset, the Tumanako Dashboard with wireless charge point activation, as well as implementations of the SolarNetwork platform, Greenstage’s enterprise level smart-grid and energy management platform.

Previously a private function, the Greenstage Gathering will this year be open to the public for the first time.

“Greenstage is totally passionate about electric vehicles, and all the cool stuff you can do with photovoltaics and embedded and mobile software platforms,” says Greenstage CEO, Philip Court. “We want to see high quality, innovative electric vehicles buzzing around New Zealand roads supported by a solid renewable and data ecosystem. People talk about electric vehicles and solar arrays and say ‘they’ll be here someday’. We’re not waiting – we’re making it happen today, and that’s what this gathering is all about.”

Greenstage’s solar strategist, John Gorman, was recently invited to the White House in Washington D.C. to attend the Energy Datapalooza celebrating the Open Energy Data Initiative. “Technologists can now build compelling products using the pooled resources of innovative communities,” says Gorman. “Many investors welcome open source development because it’s so cost effective and efficient. When it comes to funding innovation the first question many now ask is: ‘Why NOT use open source software, tools and platforms?’”

Greenstage’s event will also debut some of the top open source cleantech and solar tech being developed locally. Auckland entrepreneur Chris Olson has chosen Greenstage’s energy management platform to underpin an innovative solar project. “We chose Greenstage’s platform because it fits with our vision of how the public will engage with renewable distributed generation.” Olson will announce details of his project at the Greenstage Gathering. The event starts at 10am on Sunday November 18th, and will feature coffee, a solar-powered sausage sizzle, and live music provided by (clean-powered) local rock group, the Grey Lynn Dogs.

Further information about the event can be obtained by emailing info@greenstage.co.nz or on the web at http://www.greenstage.co.nz

About Greenstage

Greenstage is a creative team of technologists focused on making electric vehicles powered by renewable energy part of the New Zealand’s near future. Its strategy for making this happen is to involve innovators from the outset and to embrace open source methodologies. These allow technologists to assemble cutting edge solutions and products based on openly sharing the designs or source code. Other products built with open source software and hardware include the Linux operating system, the Firefox browser, and the Android operating system used by smartphones and tablets. ENDS

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