Salem Kicks Gas 2026

After attending the Salem Kicks Gas EV Show in 2025, I had to go back for this year’s show, which was on April 12. This time I was properly signed up to display my Polestar 2 and the weather looked more promising.

Salem, Massachusetts is about a 100 mile drive and with the show scheduled to start at 1pm, I left around 10:15am, arriving there right around noon.

I checked in and got my “packet”, which had a name tag that unfortunately said “Chevy Equinox” on it instead of “Polestar 2”. I scratched it out with the pencil I keep in the pen clip in the glove box.

There were designated spots assigned to people and their cars, but from what I could tell plenty of people were not in their spots, probably due to “best laid plans” and all that.

The weather started off sunny and reasonably comfortable for mid-April in New England. But as the afternoon progressed, the wind picked up and the clouds came in, noticeably dropping the temps. I’m a Mainer so was prepared for wild April weather fluctuations and had a variety of coats, hats and gloves to handle whatever Mother Nature had up her sleeve.

At the beginning of the show I talked with Corbin, The Ioniq Guy, for a little while. I met him at least year’s show and it was good to chat with him again. He had his 2025 Ioniq 5 there and it was being used to help power some equipment for one of the food vendors.

While we were talking, Jesse from Green Wave EV came over to chat as well. Both the Ioniq Guy and Green Wave EV were show sponsors, so many thanks to them!

It was also great to hear from Jesse that used EV sales have been heating up the last couple months. After all, used EVs are one of the best ways to get into the EV world!

I spent a fair amount of time with my Polestar 2 answering questions about it and EVs in general. The Polestar 2 is certainly a “looker” and people loved to check it out, especially since it is not a commonly seen EV.

EV Showcase

Here’s a brief recap of some of the other EVs that I visited and talked to their owners about. Unfortunately, I didn’t get everyone’s name and certainly didn’t get to look at everything there.

Lucid Air

My neighbor at the show was Rob with his lovely Lucid Air.

The Air is a gorgeous car and that trunk opening is wild. There’s a ton of room in there and the front trunk is also huge (I’m pretty sure I could have curled up and taken a nap in it). The car itself is luxurious, comfortable and spacious. I really liked it and the only negative I had about it was that it was rather long, about 15 inches longer than my Polestar 2. Even Rob said that it can be a bit tricky to park on the street in downtown Salem.

BMW i3

I love the original BMW i3 and when I saw one was at the show, I had to get a closer look at it. This is a small car with quirky, unique styling. It’s carbon fiber! This version has the range extender (REx) engine in the back that works as a small generator to charge the battery and increase the effective range.

I didn’t catch the owner’s name, but we did talk a bit about the innovative things in the i3 and how it really didn’t appeal to BMW owners. It’s an unBMW!

I did consider an i3 for a short while when I first started looking at EVs. Its design appeals to me, but it being rear-wheel drive only, didn’t make it a great option for Maine. The range was also less than I wanted.

This would make a wonderful city car, and I still kind of want one!

Ioniq 5

I do love the funky design of the Ioniq 5. It’s angles and shapes are unique and cool, at least to me. Unfortunately, it’s bigger than I want, but I like everything else about it. There is a ton of room, controls are nicely done and it has colors that I like.

The owner of this 2025 Ioniq 5 Limited had driven it on a road trip from Rhode Island to Ohio and had some printouts of the route they took with charging stops. It was really interesting to hear his story.

He mentioned that even though the 2025 Ioniq has the NACS plug, he almost never uses Tesla Superchargers because the Ioniq charges slower at them due to the mismatch between the Ioniq’s 800 volt design and the Tesla Superchargers lower voltage specs.

Rivian R1S and Chevy Equinox

The Rivian R1S was huge! The owner said he had reserved the smaller R2 and will likely switch to it when it is available.

Next to the Rivian was a Chevy Equinox. This was an all-black model and looked kind of mean! It actually didn’t seem too big to me and the design was pleasant. I’m not surprised this has been such a popular vehicle for Chevy.

Other Notes

I didn’t count, but there were somewhere between 20 and 30 EVs at the show. Strangely, the assigned parking chart made it look like there would be a lot more EVs there, but I guess some people that had signed up didn’t bother to show up.

In addition to EVs, there were also people showing electric bikes, unicycles, lawn mowers and stuff.

There were certainly more visitors than last year’s show (which had terrible weather), but I’d love there to have been more. I think things dwindled down a bit once the weather cooled off.

Salem has done this EV show for several years now and I hope it continues. Maybe someday we’ll get a warm April day, though!

Polestar 2 Drive Stats

This drive to Salem was the longest single trip I’ve made without charging. It came out to 193.4 miles.

I left with 100% charge and I arrived back at home with 9% charge and 23 miles remaining. Both of those are the lowest I’ve gotten my Polestar 2 down to.

At 9% everything still drove normally. There was no “turtle mode” yet.

The drive was nearly all highway and I set the ACC to the speed limit, keeping speeds between 60 and 70mph. On the drive back I mostly kept things at 65mph. The Polestar 2 gets noticeably better efficiency at slower speeds.

The end result was 33.2kWh/100mi, which comes out to 3.01mi/kWh. That is amazingly good, especially for a cool April day with temps between 45-50F and some wind.

With those numbers, that gives a maximum range of about 225 miles, which is darn close to the 233 mile EPA rating. In the summer, I will be able to easily beat that!