**Title**: Energy in the North - Tim Leach
**Date**: September 10, 2025
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Tim Leach

00;00;00;05 - 00;00;05;16 [Tim Leach] As soon as I started moving the vehicle, that's what I heard. And I thought for sure that I had just broken something.

00;00;05;16 - 00;00;14;19 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I joined Launch 91ÊÓƵ's deputy director for transportation, Tim Leach, for a test drive of his electric vehicle from his home in Palmer. Let's go for a drive.

00;00;15;22 - 00;00;20;13 [Amanda Byrd] Okay. Were inside the vehicle the How do I start the car?

00;00;20;13 - 00;00;47;01 [Tim Leach] To do that, so you'll notice, if you listen really closely like here, the heater's on right now that the ventilation is on. So the vehicle is already on. And the reason that is, is because I've got my phone with me. So it recognizes that the person who has the phone just entered the vehicle. It turns the system or wakes the system up. To shift into drive, so you've already got half of it done, which is your foot on the brake pedal. You take your hand here and on this gear lever, you push it down,

00;00;47;01 - 00;00;48;24 [Amanda Byrd] The right hand goes down.

00;00;48;26 - 00;00;52;19 [Tim Leach] Yep. And that's to the d d for drive, obviously.

00;00;52;19 - 00;00;53;27 [Amanda Byrd] Okay, so that turned on.

00;00;53;27 - 00;01;05;27 [Tim Leach] And so now, before you take your foot off the brake and push the accelerator, this vehicle is, has one pedal driving, and you, have you experienced that in any vehicle before?

00;01;05;27 - 00;01;10;13 [Amanda Byrd] Like an accelerator and a brake? 

00;01;10;13 - 00;01;47;23 [Tim Leach] Well, that would be to two pedals. Well, that would be to two pedals. Actually, there are two pedals down there. You're absolutely correct about that. The one pedal driving version of how to drive a vehicle is that you can use the accelerator, just like you are using in any other vehicle, to go press it down to go. But as soon as you take your foot off the accelerator, it actually actively engage the regenerative braking system without having to touch the brake. And so functionally, what that means is as you take off your foot off the accelerator, the car starts to slow down, like actively starts to slow down, not just kind of goes to a stop. So that's something to be aware of. You'll get a feel for it really quick. It's very intuitive, but it is just a slightly little bit different than the more standard driving.

00;01;47;23 - 00;01;50;16 [Amanda Byrd] So, I'm going to put my foot on the one pedal.

00;01;50;18 - 00;01;51;27 [Tim Leach] Yep, the accelerator.

00;01;51;29 - 00;01;56;13 [Amanda Byrd] The accelerator. We're going to drive. So we're going forwards and off we go,

00;01;56;15 - 00;01;56;29 [Tim Leach] off we go. 

00;01;57;01 - 00;02;06;07 [Amanda Byrd] Were gonna go for a drive around the neighborhood. It's
 It's very quiet, except for the noise of sounds of just driving on the road. And I take my foot off and we stop.

00;02;06;07 - 00;02;06;19 [Tim Leach] Yeah.

00;02;06;19 - 00;02;08;13 [Amanda Byrd] Okay. So I'm going to go left. Okay.

00;02;08;28 - 00;03;05;20 [Tim Leach] The quiet piece, like you mentioned with the noise, the gravel. That was the first thing that struck me to when I first test drove this vehicle. And was. So it was October, I think. And so there's snow on the ground already. And there have been kind of a plowed, parking lot kind of crunchy ice, crunchy ice type stuff. And so as soon as I started moving the vehicle, that's what I heard. And I thought for sure that I had just broken something. I thought, you know, there was like metal grinding on metal. And I was like, what was that? It's like, oh, that's just the tires on the ice. And it's because, I mean, every vehicle makes that noise. But in most other vehicles you can't hear it because the internal combustion engines loud enough that it overcomes the sound of the the road noise, the tires on whatever the surfaces. So, yeah. Quiet. And from, the perspective of a commuter, someone who's community from Anchorage to Palmer for a bunch of years, a quieter car is something that I really quite appreciate.

00;03;05;20 - 00;03;07;04 [Amanda Byrd] Okay, we're going to turn around here, I'm gonna be really careful with that taking your foot off the accelerator. There's no free roll.

00;03;12;21 - 00;03;14;08 [Tim Leach] It's different. Yeah,

00;03;14;08 - 00;03;32;10 [Amanda Byrd] The other thing that's really interesting is I keep looking in front of the steering wheel, behind the steering wheel for the dashboard to tell me how fast I'm going, and there is no information that it's on the screen to my right hand side, which really is kind of mind blowing.

00;03;32;13 - 00;03;51;10 [Tim Leach] They. Yeah, I mean, Tesla is, unique for lots of reasons, of course, but the design of the vehicle, is one that they really took a different approach on. And you can hear that noise with just the car saying, there's a dog that just ran and between you and the garage door. So it was alerting you that there was something behind you.

00;03;51;10 - 00;03;53;11 [Amanda Byrd] So I've stopped.

00;03;53;11 - 00;04;02;12 [Tim Leach] And now, you can basically push your finger on to the button at the end of that stock in here. There you go. And that hits into park. There you go.

00;04;02;12 - 00;04;03;04 [Amanda Byrd] It's done.

00;04;03;04 - 00;04;08;29 [Tim Leach] So you've just taken a test drive if you will, in the model three here. How is it.

00;04;08;29 - 00;04;09;25 [Amanda Byrd] Excellent.

00;04;09;25 - 00;04;11;06 [Tom Leach] Excellent. I'm glad to hear it.

00;04;11;06 - 00;04;18;13 [Amanda Byrd] Tim Leach is launch 91ÊÓƵ's deputy director for transportation. And I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the 91ÊÓƵ Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.