3 New EV Speakers In Berlin, Tesla Test Drives All Weekend, & Discount Passes!

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CLEANTECH REVOLUTION TOUR → Berlin is around the corner, and we have 3 new EV speakers to announce. We also have updates regarding EV test drives and discounts! Discounts include optional one-day passes and special CleanTechnica discounted tickets that we’ll raffle off!

First of all, the new speakers:

• Hannah Yanchuk, Deputy Head of Board, CA Electric Vehicle Association of Ukraine
  Hannah will present on effective ways of stimulating electric vehicle adoption in developing countries. She has several years of experience working on this topic.

• Helge Hinrichs, Germany Station Manager at blitzzcar
  Blitzzcar provides electric rentals by the hour, day, weekend, etc. It currently operates in Germany and Austria. Helge will present a bit on this business model, and why it’s his current professional focus.
  

• Robert Schulze, Founder of Vilgard
  Founding Vilgard, a company developing a cool little hybrid car that makes the hybrid title greener than ever, Robert will of course speak about this startup. But as a teaser: the Vilgard hybrid electric car is a hybrid between electric power and human/pedal power!

We haven’t given much info on this yet, but we have some neat electric car test drive opportunities coming to the CLEANTECH REVOLUTION TOUR → Berlin event. Blitzzcar (noted above) will be bringing a Tesla Model S or two to the event for the entire weekend. Of course, we have some specific slots blocked out for test drives for anyone who doesn’t want to miss a single session (like me!), but that means that people can also go out and test drive a Tesla at any time if it is too packed during the allotted slots… or if you just want to go on multiple test drives. 😀

In addition to blitzzcar, eMio will be bringing along electric scooters that we can test drive during the test drive periods. eMio offers electric scooter sharing in Berlin (a good transport option for any attendees coming from out of the country… or even from within Berlin).

We’re in communication with other companies regarding potential electric car test drives during the event, so stay tuned for more announcements.

And now on to the money… if you want to come for just one day, we now have one-day passes for the event. You can go ahead and buy one (or more) of these on eventbrite or the Important Media registration page (note: this form allows you to buy tickets with a credit card, not just PayPal).

CleanTechnica is also offering some discounted passes, via a social media contest of sorts. If you tweet, share on Facebook, share on LinkedIn, flip on Flipboard, or Google+ this page, and then comment on the article with a link to your share(s), I’ll put you in a raffle for the discounted tickets. Each share, tweet, etc., gets you an entry into the raffle, so be sure to share all of them with us.

For full event details, you can check out this updated program or the event website. And one more time, here are the other wonderful speakers who will be making presentations at CLEANTECH REVOLUTION TOUR → Berlin:

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José Pontes

Always interested in the auto industry, particularly in electric cars, Jose has been overviewing the sales evolution of plug-ins through the EV Sales blog since 2012, allowing him to gain an expert view on where EVs are right now, and where they are headed in the future. The EV Sales blog has become a go-to source for people interested in electric car sales around the world. Extending that work and expertise, Jose is now a partner in EV-Volumes.

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Julian Cox

Julian led the first example of a market-wide conversion from fuel to lithium battery power as the CEO of a company that he founded. The company eventually gained major customers in over 30 countries, opened offices in Europe and the US, and set up wholly owned factories in Asia. In 2016, Julian joined CleanTechnica as chief EV battery and technical reporter and analyst.

An Imperial college–educated engineer, Julian developed amongst the first semi autonomous commercial drones for use in aerial imaging before going on to play a key role in the early worldwide commercialisation of lithium-ion batteries for use in conjunction with electric motors, developing manufacturing processes and factories in Malaysia and taking an ownership stake in cell design in South Korea that was later purchased by A123 Systems. Prior to all of that, Julian also had an 8-year career in the media with contributions to the brand building of hundreds of household names (Apple, Intel, Ford, Volvo, and others).

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Roland Irle

Enjoying a lifelong interest in cars and technology with over 20 years of auto-industry experience, Roland is now convinced that the best cars for the future will be EVs.

In partnership with Jose Pontes, he co-founded EV-Volumes to become a premier source of EV industry sales data and broader EV consultancy.

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Stefan Schurig 

Stefan is the Director of Climate, Energy, and Cities at the World Future Council. Stefan is an architect by training, but has devoted most of his career to energy and climate change issues. Before he started working for the World Future Council in 2007, he was the spokesperson for Greenpeace in Germany and headed the Greenpeace Climate and Energy department for 9 years. During this time, he also co-founded Germany’s second-largest green electricity supplier. In 2004, Stefan was appointed as member of the REALISE Forum, an international platform on renewable energy policies led by the European Commission. As Director Climate Energy at the World Future Council (WFC), Stefan initiated the international policy campaign on renewable energy and the worldwide promotion of ‘Feed-In Tariffs’ as one of the best policies for a massive uptake of renewable energy. In 2008, Stefan became a member of the energy advisory board of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) and was appointed by UN Habitat as an advisor of the World Urban Campaign. Stefan also founded and coordinates the WFC international expert commission on Cities and Climate Change. He works as a direct advisor for governments and parliamentarians around the globe and authored various publications on climate change subjects.

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Tobias Engelmeier

Tobias is Director and Founder of Bridge to India, India’s leading sustainability advisory firm. He’s also the founder of IndiaGoesSolar.com and an early supporter and investor of GridHub. Tobias contributes epic articles about the Indian energy market and climate policies on CleanTechnica. He holds a PhD in politics, has a great love for India, an equally great concern for our climate future, and is currently working on ways to accelerate an energy transition across various developing countries.

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Viktor Irle

Growing up in an auto-producing city in Sweden, Viktor has had an interest in cars for as long as he can remember. Writing his thesis about speed-controlled electric engines, and later studying industrial transformation and technological change, the great emerging opportunities of EVs made him jump on the train and co-found EV-Volumes, aimed at becoming the premier source of EV industry sales data and broader EV consultancy.

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Zachary Shahan

Well, this is me, but if you don’t know much about my background, here’s a bit of a primer. I’m the director and editor of CleanTechnica (the #1 most-visited cleantech-focused news and analysis site on the internet) as well as EV Obsession and SolarLove (two sites I founded in 2012). I’m also the president of Important Media, which is the parent network to those three sites and ~20 others. I’m the editor of Masdar’s Sustainnovate as well, and you can find my work all over the internet, including on Scientific American, Reuters, The Economist Group’s GE Look Ahead, ABB’s Conversations, the World Economic Forum’s Agenda, Renewable Energy World, TreeHugger, most Important Media sites, and several other websites.

I have been referenced or interviewed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, CNBC, and numerous other news outlets and websites. I have also presented, provided workshops, and moderated panels at clean energy and electric vehicles conferences in the US, Canada, and India (and soon Europe). In 2013, I was named one of the top 20 influencers on fuel economy matters alongside President Obama, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, the US Secretary of Energy, Nissan & Renault Chairman & CEO Carlos Ghosn, GM’s CEO and president, and several other car company execs as well as a few leading auto journalists.