DRIVE Electric Earth Month Ride & Drive a Big Success at Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
Valley of the Sun Electric Vehicle Association’s Drive Electric Earth Month (DEEM) Ride & Drive, co-sponsored by DRIVE Electric Arizona’s Native Nations chapter, was a standout success at the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s Earth Day Event.
The event drew just under 1,100 attendees, and we completed 79 Ride & Drives—a strong result and a clear sign of growing public interest in electric vehicles. Just as importantly, this event marked a major milestone as the first Drive Electric Earth Month Ride & Drive held on sovereign Tribal land, making it a meaningful step forward in Native community engagement around transportation electrification.
A Fantastic EV Lineup
Volunteer owners brought an impressive mix of EVs for the public to drive, including Rivian R1S, Cadillac Lyriq, Cadillac Optiq, Lucid Air, Kia EV6, Polestar 2 Performance, Tesla Model Y, BMW i4, Nissan Ariya, and Hyundai Ioniq 5.
The Rivian R1S brought by a Rivian representative, drew special attention with a demonstration of Rivian’s Kick Turn feature.
We also had a strong static display lineup: a Lucid Gravity, a Kia EV6 GT, a Porsche Taycan, Rivian R1S, BMW i4, Polestar 2, and a Ford Mustang Mach-E GT.
The R1T Did Double Duty
Because the event included both the Tribe’s broader Earth Day area and the separate Ride & Drive area, we used the Spirit of Arizona Rivian R1T in a creative and very useful way.
Positioned in the main Earth Day area, the R1T served as a ride vehicle, giving attendees and people carrying bulky bags a lift over to the Ride & Drive area. That turned out to be a terrific outreach tool in itself, creating many great conversations about the truck and about EVs more broadly.
Citizen Science for Cleaner Air
At the Valley of the Sun Electric Vehicle Association booth at the tribe’s Earth Day area, we also handed out a large number of free PurpleAir air quality monitors through our American Lung Association grant.
Our partnership with the American Lung Association reflects an important truth: transportation and air quality are closely connected. Cleaner transportation helps support cleaner air, and cleaner air matters directly to public health—especially for children, older adults, and families dealing with respiratory conditions such as asthma.
These monitors are part of a Maricopa County air quality research project, and attendees who install and activate them become citizen scientists, helping generate valuable local data about the air people breathe every day.
Why Events Like This Matter
This event brought together real EVs, real owners, real conversations, and real community interest.
It was a powerful example of what makes these events work so well: people get to ask questions in a welcoming setting, experience a wide range of vehicles firsthand, and begin to picture electric driving as something practical, exciting, and within reach.
A big thank-you to all of the volunteer owners, partners, and attendees who helped make the day such a success.
Photo Credit: Todd Broeker
