Electrify Expo Long Beach 2022

Last year I went to Electrify Expo and had an absolute blast. So much to see and do. This year I knew I had to come and experience it again. Expanding from three locations last year, to five locations this year, the first event was held in Long Beach, California, right on the Formula Drift Long Beach Circuit! There were so many cool companies that all had their new cars, bikes and scooters on display. I'll go through some of my favorite things that I saw this year!

Lucid was very surprising to me. The car was massive and had tons of leg room. But, it felt over designed, like too much was going on at the same time in one car. I really liked the color range though, all of the colors seemed very natural and simple. Along with this, each of their interiors is named after some place in the US. For example, Lake Tahoe California, a really nice brown leather with super subtle grizzly bear logos on the seats and the exact location of the center of Lake Tahoe. What I think amazed me the most about the Lucid Air was the amount of frunk space it had. You could fit at least three golf bags in the frunk. It was insane how much room there was. Sadly, we were not able to test drive the Lucid as they were running it with pre-booked time slots and they all booked up within 30 minutes. Definitely super excited to see more of these on the road!

Well, obviously Polestar had an amazing booth. Super simple, but clean and crisp, and people really seemed interested in the Polestar 2 (sadly no P1 this time).  I think people are finally realizing what a Polestar is, because it was really amazing to me the amount of people who knew right away what it was. 

I also think one of my other favorite cars there was the BMW IX. Don't get me wrong, the front of the car is horrendous, but everything else is incredibly well done. The interior was probably the best out of possibly any car there. All of the fabrics were comfortable and every piece on the dash was even and nicely laid out. It was luxurious, but it was still catered towards someone who would enjoy driving the car (unlike the Lucid which was built for passengers). They also had a Hybrid 3 series that looked really good in the new M3 Green! I'm definitely excited to see more electric BMWs because, from what I can see they are going to be very good!

I was super excited to also see Travis Pastrana's FC1-X rally cross car at the Expo as well. This car is a new step into making rallycross electric. These cars are way more powerful and better to drive than the old ones, and they easily make racing much better for the new FIA Electric RallyCross Series that is currently in progress right now. Thanks so much to the Vermont Sports Car Crew for letting me sit in it as well!

Another electric race car I saw there was the unplugged performance Tesla Model 3. This thing was properly mental. Fully caged, tube chassis in the front, MASSIVE wing and possibly some of the most complicated suspension ever. This thing was probably, in my opinion, the coolest thing there. Every single thing on the car had been changed, aside from the screen, battery and motor. It was just insanely cool to see a car with this much done to it. I also think it will be driven at Pikes Peak this year! 

The last thing I want to talk about is the Electrical Mechanical Solo, and oh my goodness, is this thing absolutely horrible. The interior looks likes it's been dated 10 years in the past, the tires are tiny and seem to provide no grip whatsoever and the car wobbles when you turn. I really don't know what the point of this car is. I would worry about it on it's pretty much highway and the quality is worse than a Tesla. For big cities like New York it might be understandable, but what if you want to go somewhere over 50 miles? You couldn't. I think most people already concluded that this thing is garbage, but we'll see what happens in the future.

I had a blast at Electrify Expo this year and I definitely want to go back for 2023. Hopefully- next year we get some of the other big manufacturers in SoCall, like Porsche and Mercedes! Thanks for having me Electrify Expo!