Sacramento will host the 36th annual Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exhibition, an international event for the growing electric transportation industry.
The event anticipates 2,500 delegates attending, and is expected to use all the exhibit halls in the expanded SAFE Credit Union Convention Center downtown next June.
“When you go out to get an event like this, they check you out. They do their homework,” said Mike Testa, CEO of Visit Sacramento, the city's convention and visitors bureau. “The city of Sacramento has a long history of leadership in electric vehicles.”
Additionally, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, the county’s electric utility, has long been an advocate of EVs, and it committed to sponsor the event in Sacramento.
The annual event, presented by the Washington, D.C.-based Electric Drive Transportation Association, is in the U.S. every three years. The last scheduled U.S. event was in Portland, Oregon, in 2020, but it was canceled because of the pandemic. This year’s event just concluded in Oslo, Norway.
The Electric Drive Transportation Association promotes battery, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell electric drive technologies for cars, trucks, heavy equipment and infrastructure.
“The Electric Vehicle Symposium is a global gathering of electric transportation leaders. Sacramento’s distinguished history and unique vision for e-mobility makes it the perfect forum for EVS36,” said association President Genevieve Cullen, in a news release. The Sacramento event will run over four days, June 11-14, 2023.
Sacramento would appear to be an apt location for the EV symposium. It’s the capital of the state with the most aggressive goal for requiring that all new cars and trucks sold in 2035 be zero-emission vehicles.
Sacramento is also home to the California Air Resources Board, the agency that has spearheaded stringent emissions standards since the 1970s.
And for more than a year, Sacramento has been home to the California Mobility Center, a prototyping and development center for electric mobility technologies. The mobility center was initiated in 2019 by SMUD, which made an initial $5 million investment and committed to up to another $10 million in matching funds. The center now has more than 30 members, and partnerships with international transportation technology groups and utilities.
