January Meeting at Kia of Portland

Thursday January 8th, 2026, 7:00 to 9 PM, Board Meeting at 6:30

Kia of Portland, 720 NE Grand Ave, Portland
Plenty of Free Parking, and a Delicious Chipotle Burrito Bar!

Our first event of 2026

For the third year in a row, the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association will hold our first General Meeting of the year at Kia of Portland at 720 NE Grand Ave. Our thanks to the Kia folks, particularly general manager Ken Cornelison, who go all-out to make us feel welcome and provide us with helpful information. Ken's talk last year about the economics of EV leasing was so interesting we asked him to reprise the talk at our April Drive Electric Earth Month event. You can catch all the talks from the April event on our Videos page. 

There have been a lot of changes in the EV market, and Ken will give us an update on that, and the impact on leasing EVs. Kia has two new lower cost EV models, the EV3 and EV4. I look forward to finding out about these sure to be popular models. One great feature of the Kia EV6 and EV9 that I hope the new lower cost models come with is Vehicle-to-Load power transfer (V2L). This enables them to power external devices, potentially even charging another EV through a mobile charger. I think all EVs could benefit from that feature.

This will be the first meeting where we use the OEVA public address speaker and wireless microphones. It will be a great space to try out this system. Let a board member know if you find this helpful and we'll make it a regular feature at our meetings.

Parking and Food

Ken has arranged for us to park for free for the evening in the parking structure across NE Irving street from the entrance to Kia of Portland. Please don't park in the lot at the Kia of Portland building, as they've got very limited parking spaces there.

Kia of Portland is treating us to a Chipotle burrito bar! I enjoy it when I get to build my own burrito, so I can make it just the way I like it. As always, we appreciate it when meeting attendees bring a food item to share. Since Kia is providing the main meal, maybe bring fruit or a dessert? I'm bringing chocolate chip cookies. If you've started your January repentance for all the overeating you did in December, feel free to bring the Christmas candy and cookies you're trying to avoid eating. Your OEVA friends will be glad to help you out with that!

As are all our OEVA General Meetings, this meeting is free and open to the public, and as usual is from 7 to 9 PM. These meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month, so this will be January 8th, 2026. We hold an OEVA Board Meeting immediately before the General Meeting, from 6:30 to 7 PM, and all OEVA members are welcome to attend to hear what the board is working on.