This was “ZEM goes USA"
Blog 4 | Studentteam TU/ecomotive
"I'm back where it all started. I'm at the shipper's department store and now fully owned by the shipping company. What a bizarre month it has been. I have met so many different people and groups, from the kids in Rio Linda to the Ambassador in Washington, what a contrast. I hope I've been able to make people everywhere think and inspire."
It's super crazy to realize that the tour is over. Just over a month ago we started the two groups on different sides of the country, the "west coast team" starting in San Francisco and the "east coast team" starting in New York, both with the same goal; to shape the future of sustainable mobility.
In Austin, we finally got the full group together and felt like we could really get started. Austin is becoming the new American tech hub, the next Sillicon Valley and the place where innovation begins. We spent 3 days in Austin where we, along with Sorama, showed what innovation looks like.
From Austin, we started driving back to the West Coast in a few days to go back to some of the locations we have visited before without ZEM, but this time, of course, we took ZEM with us! We also obviously visited locations we hadn't been to before and were able to tell our story as completely as possible at once and show them ZEM. All responses were hugely complimentary and it was super cool for us as a team to be able to respond to the questions that were asked about our project.
"The strangest question I've had is still the question of how many pineapples fit in ZEM."
Luka Fieten
Surely one of the wishes we had during this tour was to test the highest speed that ZEM can reach. At the Transportation Research Center (TRC) in California we were given this opportunity and we took full advantage of it. A tremendously beautiful location with a large rectangular area surrounded by concrete blocks in which we could push ZEM to its limits. It was a fantastic sight to see ZEM go so hard and the pride radiated from the faces of all the team members present.
Perhaps one of the most bizarre car gatherings we attended was Cars & Coffee on our very last day of the tour. We gathered at 7:00 in the morning at the polo club in Greenwhich we were invited to showcase our car among all the high-end cars present. Think Lamborghini, Porsche, Austin Martin, Audi and a hugely rare Lancia rally car. Of course, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to have ZEM on display here. At this point, it felt like we had come full circle. We were at a car cathering where a huge capacity of cars was on display and we had not yet spoken to this target group in America. They showed enormous interest and respect for the fact that the car was completely built by themselves. Nice that precisely these car enthusiasts also admire this innovation.
"I've never done it before so I think I can do it"
Pippi Longstocking
It is fantastically beautiful to see what we have achieved as a team. ZEM is the result of 35 students who spent a full year showing a whole lot of perseverance and with all their dedication brought this project to a beautiful end.
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