November 13, 2019
Dear Tennessee EV advocates and enthusiasts,

I'm excited to tell you that DriveElectricTN now has a full-time coordinator! Virginia Salazar Buda was recently hired by and will work in the offices of ETCleanFuels, based out of Knoxville, where she will coordinate and manage Tennessee statewide initiatives that advocate for the use and adoption of electric vehicles. (DriveElectricTN is an initiative of a Tennessee-wide partnership that includes ETCleanFuels.)

Virginia resides in Johnson City, TN with her partner Doug, their children Miles, London, and two cats, Christof and Mister Weasley. Her family lives in an older home where a variety of scuff marks can be discovered on the surfaces of their bright, colorful walls and furniture.

Virginia believes that a home and work environment should be a comfortable place where vibrant, respectfully communicated opinions and scuff marks are welcome. She has an open-minded approach to problem-solving where everyone’s thought processes are valued.

Virginia's career and personal experiences, anchored in education, art, culture, and community-building, have brought tremendous personal joy and satisfaction. She’s grateful to be included in the East Tennessee Clean Fuels team and take on the multi-faceted task of coordinating DET!

We're absolutely thrilled to have Virginia on our team. You'll be hearing more from her in the coming weeks!

Daniel Siksay
Co-Coordinator, East Tennessee Clean Fuels
EV Awareness Co-Chair, DriveElectricTN
Spread the word about our e-mail list
Currently, we’re creating a statewide email communication network a unified front – where EV pioneers and advocates can receive up-to-date information, ideas, stories and relevant resources.

As a part of this network, participants will receive updates about ongoing DET projects and information about to get involved themselves.

You are already on this list, however we want your help by encouraging others to sign up.  Please forward this to other enthusiasts and sign up today to be a part of our Tennessee statewide EV story! Virginia is ready to talk to stakeholders to discuss plans for the upcoming year. Please reach out to her at virginia@driveelectrictn.org .

2020: DriveElectricTN's breakout year
DET’s breakout year is 2020! The DET long-term goal is to have 200,000 EVs registered in Tennessee by 2028, while driving our state to become an electric leader in the Southeast!

Yes, these are ambitious goals, however we have a strategy called the Roadmap that will guide us. There’s a lot of work ahead, and we want your help to achieve it.

We’ve been using The Roadmap to achieve some of our 2019 goals, which includes sharing some exciting news. The Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (TDEC) has recently released a Request for Information (RFI) for Light Duty Zero Emission Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) .

The RFI is part of the Volkswagen Diesel Settlement Environmental Mitigation Trust administered by TDEC. TDEC’s RFI is requesting your input about how to handle the release of that funding. The deadline to submit a response to the RFI is December 6, 2019 at 4 pm CT. 
DET progress: at a glance
examples of DriveElectricTN's 2019 progress; there's more to come!


  • The continued development and evolution/planning of free, statewide Ride and Drive EV Experience events (About 15-20 Ride n’ Drives were held across the entire state of Tennessee in 2019!)

  • The Drive Electric TN website is projected to be completed in December 2019. We would like your input and personal and business stories, about driving EVs in TN, to share on the website!

  • Under the “Driving Charging Infrastructure Availability” Opportunity Area in the Roadmap, work is already completed from a group effort that developed a data-rich guide for Placing new EVSE across Tennessee –expect to hear more about this in the coming weeks.
DriveElectricTN | 865-974-8474 | info@etcleanfuels.org