The Washington Auto Show is holding Military Day tomorrow, January 31st, 2012. This is good news if you are a member of the military or a proud veteran who served our country, because you will be admitted to the Washington Auto Show for Free! All you have to do is show a valid military ID, or DD214 (discharge papers) and photo ID to get Free Admission to the wonderful auto show.
JR Martinez, who won Dancing With The Stars, will be in attendance as well WWE legend Sgt. Slaughter (who actually served as a Marine.) The US Army Downrange band will play the Washington Auto Show's “Welcome Home Troops.” The USA Cheerleaders will be performing to show their support for our military as well.
Yesterday the 2012 Washington Auto Show opened to the public. Definitely a great event to go to if you are a car lover.
I attended the Public Policy day, the day before the Washing Auto Show opened (January 26th), and got to see all the offerings on hand before the massive crowds. I bet you are wondering what some of the highlights of the show were.
My personal favorites would have to be the Lotus Evora and the Lamborghini Aventador. Lamborghini's are just so amazing, sexy, powerful, over-the-top, etc. Basically everything you want in a supercar. I imagine this car is on the wall of many young children's rooms across the country. I talked with the salesman from Euro MotorCars, Jamie Gershowitz, about the Evora for awhile. I commented on how the body from from a distance looked like a Tesla. This is because Lotus makes the body shells and chassis for the Tesla Roadster. He told me how fun there were to drive. If I was a dog… I would have been drooling. (Alright, maybe I was drooling just a little bit.)
Definitely the most interesting car there would have to go Freedom Behind The Wheel and the converted Nissan 240SX race car they had on display. All the controls are done with the hands. It is specifically built for soldiers who have lost their legs, but still want to participate in racing. Ryan Downey, who built the car, seems to have refined the controls and cars to be ideal for racing. Best part about their display was they had a race simulator setup to try out the controls. I that that was pretty awesome. I was told I did fairly well. Unfortunately you can only see this car at auto shows for now.
There were a few concepts on hand as well. “Hybrid” is the keyword and along with “electric” or anything green at auto shows now, and the Washington Auto Show is no different. Toyota NS4 Hybrid and Volvo's XC60 Hybrid were on display. I hope Toyota builds the NS4 Hybrid, because I think it looks super slick. Another concept on display was the Audi E-Tron electric car. Audi is testing a fleet of them in Germany currently, but it no word on when Audi will be testing their electric cars in the US.
Fiat had a little area for doing test drives with the new Fiat 500. It seemed a lot of press people and government officials were happy to not just look at cars, but actually drive one. Especially inside the Washington Auto Show. I thought this was a good idea, but is not necessarily going to make me buy a Fiat 500. I love the original Fiat 500, but the new one just seems too much of chick car.
The day I attended Senator Jeff Merkley (Oregon)gave a speech and talked about what the Senate was doing to try to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Honestly his speech was pretty boring, but I listened intently anyway. As well Mark Reuss, President of General Motors North American operations (GM), gave a speech at the show. I guess he came to make sure all the politicians were happy with the job he was doing and what GM is doing. As well pat himself on the back about making GM number 1 again. (Just so you know you have natural disasters to thank for that!)
Ray LaHood, the secretary of transportation, was in attendance as well. Unlike Senator Merkley and surprisingly Mark Reuss, he is a good public speaker. He spoke in the Advanced Super Highway section of the hall, which featured electric cars, hybrids, and other green cars from many different automakers. “This great auto show features some of the best cars in the world” said LaHood about the Washington Auto Show adding “In this hall, you can see what is possible.” In his speech he stressed the importance of the auto bailouts. He claimed the government's actions saved our whole economy and over 1 million jobs. I didn't agree with most of his statements, since I am against bailouts, but whatever.
If you love cars, and are in the DC metro area, I would definitely go checkout the Washington Auto Show. It runs from January 27th – February 5th, 2012.
A recent Baltimore-based start-up called ParkingPanda.com, run by Nick Miller and Adam Zilberbaum, has definitely piqued my interest. Why? Because they aim to revolutionize parking as we know it.
The idea is simple. You need a space in Downtown Baltimore, say for a Ravens or Orioles game. You don't want to spend 30+ minutes driving around aimlessly looking for parking. So you log onto ParkingPanda and find someone who might have a parking space downtown, but is away for a few days or just might not need it. They rent out their parking space to you, for less than what it would cost to park in a garage. That person makes a little cash on a personal parking space they otherwise would have not been using and you get to find parking quickly and cheaply! It's great for all parties involved!
Nick Miller is the Co-Founder and CEO of ParkingPanda. Like most great internet ideas, the company was conceived during his college days in our nation's capitol, “I went to Georgetown. I was living in DC and I didn't really need a car. So I was sitting there with an empty driveway and I wasn't doing anything with it.” Then he had the challenging experience of trying to find parking. “After I had moved out I was up here [Baltimore] at a Raven's game and there was a guy standing there with a cardboard sign that was like, “Park Here $15 bucks” over at Federal Hill, way cheaper and way faster to do that, so I parked in the driveway.” This got Nick thinking, “Why can't I just put this guy's driveway online, and not drive around and hand this guy some cash! So it was actually having experienced both sides of it. It made it apparent this needed to be done.”
This led Nick to take part in Startup Weekend Baltimore, an intense 54-hour technology competition where teams build a website or application over the course of a weekend. Nick met Adam [Zilberbaum] and told him about his wild idea for a peer-to-peer online parking community. The two hit it off and spent the weekend developing the idea. Needless to say, ParkingPanda won the competition! For winning they received the necessary funds to incorporate ParkingPanda. Once incorporated, the company got additional money which led into marketing and building up the website.
Then the dynamic duo spent the summer in a tech accelerator in New York City. This gave them three months of office space in Times Square and the chance to make connections with well-known entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. They also got $25,000 in seed money. The culmination of the tech accelerator was giving a pitch to all the companies involved, and to potential investors.
The company launched at the Inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix. “The first weekend at the Grand Prix we booked about 117 spaces over the course of the weekend.” says Nick. Not bad for a first weekend.
Currently ParkingPanda operates exclusively in Baltimore, but they hope to expand. “We will be in DC soon,” Nick says, “We will probably roll out to DC in 2 months or less.” ParkingPanda has big aspirations for getting into other cities and markets as well. “After DC we will go to Philadelphia, Then we will expand more: Boston, Chicago, San Francisco.”
Even with big aspirations and hopes, the duo want to get the formula right. “We will focus on close markets first [Baltimore, DC, and Philly], because it is a great way to optimize what works, what doesn't. We can refine what we are doing.” says Nick.
Nick Miller, Co-Founder & CEO
During my conversation with Nick, we drew comparisons to Airbnb, a website where you can rent out rooms from people, Couchsurfing a similar service but free, and RelayRides a website that enables you to rent a neighbor's car. “People really see the value of earning a little extra cash with their assets and with helping out the community in general. If people are willing to let you share their car, I feel like there are people who are certainly willing to let you use their driveway. You have to be confident in letting someone get behind the wheel of your car, but your driveway… there is a pretty low barrier to entry there.” says Nick.
We also discussed other parking websites, which enable you to reserve spaces in a garage or parking lot in advance. Nick pointed out the advantages of ParkingPanda. “They offer you the ability to reserve a space and know exactly where you are going. We also offer the ability to save you money and to avoid the traffic associated with the garage or the parking lot, and the idea is it is peer-to-peer so you are supporting your community. Someone can be renting your driveway when you are renting someone else's.”
ParkingPanda is such an intriguing idea, I actually signed up to use the website. In the future I will definitely look for parking through the Panda! I might even list my parking space during Hopkins lacrosse games, due to limited parking in the area when games occur. I see people driving up and down our street looking for parking all the time. You can find free street parking but as Nick points out, “You risk getting towed or ticketed. Particularly if you don't know the law.” The advantage to using a service like ParkingPanda, is that you don't need to worry about that.
Nick lays out ParkingPanda like this, “You can sit down with someone and in two minutes they know what we are doing. It is not some crazy ad-technology, where two months later they are like, What are you talking about? How does it work? This is a community marketplace for parking. We want people to share their parking spaces with one another. It's straightforward!”
Want to know more about ParkingPanda? Read my interview with Nick Miller, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Baltimoreans… our humble city has been rated the 2nd worst driving city in the country! Why such a rating? Apparently drivers of Baltimore get into 88% more accidents than the rest of the country. “Charm City residents apparently see their vehicles as just another crustacean waiting for its shell to be cracked open” is the way Jalopnik put it. Somehow there is some truth to that statement. The rankings were taken from Allstate's data, which insures 10% of all US drivers. Jalopnik sorted through the data to compile the list. It's hard for me to believe we are the 2nd worst in the country, but I guess the numbers speak for themselves. No wonder insurance is so expensive here!
The first city on the list is Washington DC. All the super yuppies (as I like to call them) are apparently twice as likely to get into an accidents as the rest of the nation. “There are so many possible reasons — the city's cross-hatch street layout, it's population of drivers with diplomatic immunity, tour-bus related congestion — that it's hard to assign blame, exactly the kind of problem Washington excels in creating.” commented Jalopnik. Essentially this means the Baltimore-Washington Metro area is the worst driving area in the country!
I would definitely like to hear people opinions on this. Do you agree or disagree?
I joined the Sports Car Club of America today. I had never realized that SCCA actually does racing. I always assumed it was for a bunch of guys in MG's or Miatas to have car shows and events. If I had known they do racing… I would have joined a long time ago! Apparently the nickname some members have is, “Secret Car Club of America!” which is true. I mean, I am a car guy I didn't know this! I have wanted to learn to Rally race for awhile and I will get the opportunity with the SCCA. I am part of the Washington DC region which covers a lot of people in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Washington DC. If anyone else is part of the SCCA please leave a comment and let me know.
