We’re pleased to announce that this blog post is the very last new post for The Future is Electric before we move to the all-new Drive The District.

In addition to the automotive content you’ve come to expect from The Future is Electric, Drive the District highlights news that connects you to your community, with features on…

ECO: practical greening, or a realistic implementation of eco-conscious living for the everyman or everywoman

TRAVEL: getting places better, i.e. in a way that is itself an experience

TECH: focused on how new technologies impact our daily lives either to engage with a larger community or explore a seldom seen secret in our own backyards

CULTURE: highlighting the hidden gems of our area, and allowing us to dabble in or discover new passions that shift the journey

So join us at www.drivethedistrict.com and on our new Twitter and Instagram channels for updates on the interests that drive us all forward. We look forward to seeing you there!

Everyone wants in on Indio next weekend. The Bender podcast—your weekly pop culture and music binge—is teaming up with Chevy to let you enjoy some of the action. The weekend of April 13th, Indio is going to experience Volt Valley as Chevy takes over the desert on Saturday and Sunday to throw a massive pool party.

Every week on The Bender, we give you the week’s top music tracks in the Bender Boombox. In honor of Volt Valley, I put together a 2013 Spotify playlist featuring my favorite artists. From old-school alt-rock (Blur, Chili Peppers) to electropop (The Postal Service, Hot Chip) to straight up EDM (Knife Party, Hardwell, Eric Prydz), this playlist has enough variety to keep you charged up during the long weekend in the desert.

April 13^th and 14^th, the Chevy Volt is making an electric oasis in Indio for VIPs to soak up some sunshine and party to the beat of DJ sets and live performances all afternoon at Volt Valley. Like last year, the Volt will be partying and actually getting in the water with guests, but unlike last year, we’ve got a whole new list of things to do at Volt Valley:

Hot Air Balloon Rides—This party has surf, this party has turf, and this year we also have the air. When lounging on the ground gets overrated, guests will take to the sky in our hot air balloon and float on a cooler current.

Zip Line—It’s true that the fastest way from point A to point B is a straight line, but few know it’s also the most awesome. Attendees can zip from one end of our expansive party to the other in just a moment using our on-site zip line.

Volt Recharge Lounge—Partygoers can catch some shade in our Volt Recharge Lounge, where they can charge their phones using our complimentary charging stations and engage with The Bender’s Ben Harvey.

Freshments & Refreshments—A pool is a cool way to beat the desert heat. An igloo is an even better one. Volt Valley includes a Coolhaus Igloo featuring ice cream sandwiches from L.A.’s coolest creamery. The party will also serve food from The One Group and cocktails courtesy of Patrón.

If you’re not going to lounge by the pool with us, check back here the weekend of April 13^th to get an up-close and personal look at #VoltValley from the comfort of home.

The 2013 Chevy Volt and 2014 Cadillac ELR qualify for the green Clean Air Vehicle sticker. The 2014 Chevy Spark EV will qualify for the white Zero-Emissions Vehicle sticker.

Learn how to get your Clean Air Vehicle sticker here. More information on Santa Monica’s municipal code section 3.16.120 can be found here.

Today is about new family fun—thus the sweets, the mocktails, the massage treatments and the prizes—but it’s also about family preparedness. Arguably the most important thing to keep top-of-mind when expecting a new addition to the family is safety, which is why Chevrolet and Safe Kids USA are such valued partners. Safety in and around vehicles is paramount.

So, Big City Moms, Chevrolet and Safe Kids USA have put together the below car safety tip sheet to help families travel happily. Print it out, share it with friends on social media, shout it from rooftops—whatever it takes to make sure families are in the know.

We also hosted five families from the U.S. Army Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion that are expecting or recently welcomed new additions to their families to The Biggest Baby Shower Ever compliments of Chevy.

One of our military families with Giuliana Rancic!

And Giuliana Rancic wasn’t our only celebrity guest…

James Van Der Beek and his wife Kimberly

Beverley Mitchell with Big City Mom co-founders Leslie Venokur (left) and Risa Goldberg (right)

The Sonic RS felt right because it packs a lot of style and power for a car with such good fuel economy and such a low price. And we know the little details—the turbocharged engine, the suede detailing on the seats, the MyLink system—that resonate with Travis.

I convinced Jim Frenak with FPI Studios to share some of what the day entailed (read closely and you may pick up a few tips).

As we have done many times in the past with GM vehicles, the crew at FPI Studios and I were recently asked to photograph the new 2014 Chevy Impala. The main purpose of these photos is for distribution to all of the media outlets to support any news or editorial stories that are written about the vehicle.

Typical of other vehicle shoots, GM was looking for a combination of beauty shots as well as photos of the car in action. They wanted to present the car in an urban setting and a more natural location.  It’s very important that the images define the cut-lines and body sculpting that make the new Impala so distinguishable. Then GM threw in one more caveat…

Since the Impala that we were shooting was a pre-production car, there were a couple of rules that we had to follow. First, the car could only travel on private or closed roads. If it drove on public roads, we needed to close them down and hire police officers to block traffic.  This severely limited the number of possible locations to shoot the car. Second, the car couldn’t be driven from one location to another. For each location change, we needed to load the car onto a car hauler and move it to the next spot.

So with our marching orders, we spent several days scouting the Phoenix area looking for great locations to shoot that met our criteria. It may sound easy, but quite honestly it’s one of the most difficult parts. The location has to have the proper background without any building or light posts reflecting in the paint, and it must be possible to close it down from public use. We were denied access to more locations than we were granted, but we found enough places to make it work.

The perfect time to get the ideal lighting on the car is just before the sun peeks over the horizon in the morning, and just after it sets in the evening. So we started off the shoot in a private neighborhood just north of Phoenix, in the dark, at about 6 a.m. We grabbed some sunrise still shots and then moved on to action shots within the neighborhood.

The type of action photos we did were called “panning shots.”  This is when the photographer is off to the side of the road and the driver comes by at speed.  The photographer then pans with the car, thus having the car in focus and the background blurred. This is ideal for capturing the profile of the car and giving the appearance of it traveling at a high rate of speed.

We then moved across the valley to the north Scottsdale area where we procured access to a gated community that had paved roads, but no houses built yet. Since it was out in the open, we were able to get perfect light on the car. Surrounding the property were beautiful mountains and rock formations that gave us some amazing backgrounds.

We used the open roads to do another type of action shot commonly referred to as “car to car.” This is where we have a camera car that either leads or follows the subject car as it drives down the road.  The objective is to get the cars to travel at the same speed, once again allowing the photographer to keep the subject car sharp and the background blurred.

The next day involved shooting with a large camera rig.  The rig is a specially designed, carbon fiber arm that attaches to the vehicle and extends out to about 45 feet.  We put the camera on the end of the arm, allowing the camera to travel along with the car. The rig allows for much longer exposures, thus the backgrounds will have a lot more blur.  It also allows us to get the camera in positions near the moving vehicle that would normally be too difficult or unsafe.

The process of shooting with a rig is very time consuming due to the amount of time it takes to mount the rig to the vehicle and make adjustments along the way. The idea was to get the car in a more urban setting, which is what the downtown location accomplished.  The downside of shooting in town is that when you are in amongst the tall buildings, inevitably, there are a lot of reflections that end up in the car and those reflections can hide some of the distinguishing lines that we wanted to showcase on the Impala.  Ultimately, we were able to get a good balance of lighting and location that made the new Impala look great.

After some cool rig shots on the rear of the car, we moved to our final location and got ready to utilize the small window of sweet-light that we would have for the final shot of the day.

We used the next day to grab some more stills and details, and then shipped all of the images out to GM for approval.  We appreciate having the opportunity to shoot the new Impala and are looking forward to meeting once again when we shoot the car during the media launch next week in San Diego.

And, to support this Corvette Love-In we’ve pulled out a few stops of our own and have shipped out an all-new 2014 Corvette Stingray, aka “C7,” for the occasion. This is the first time the all-new Stingray will be seen on the West Coast, and it’s only there for the day so put the Peterson Museum on your to-do list for Saturday, March 2.

For the uninitiated but intrigued, below we’ve included a crash course of the highlights from the history book for six generations of ‘Vettes.

Yes, we’ve come a long way with Global Green in a rather remarkable song of redemption (cue the Bob Marley) that started, as quite a bit of GM’s current trajectory did, with the introduction of the EV1.

The EV1 was ahead of its time. It was the first mass-produced electric vehicle, and lessees who jumped on board with the EV1 adored the car and became loyal, steadfast advocates who took every opportunity to shout from the rooftops that the future would be electric!

Today we know that the future is, in fact, electric, but at the time it seemed the future only might be electric, so the EV1 faced a tough marketplace. With demand low, General Motors tabled electrification for another day, which didn’t sit well with EV1 fans.

Among them, Global Green. The organization had previously honored the EV1 with their Millennium back in the day, so having the model yanked from the leasing market felt like an affront. As I mentioned, they threatened to revoke the award. The situation was stormy between General Motors and Global Green.

But Global Green had not written us off entirely, just as we had not written off electrification.

We eventually worked things out and were able to find opportunities to collaborate. Closer to the 2010 release of the Chevy Volt, we were able to take Global Green under the hood and show off the direction GM was headed in terms of vehicle electrification. We got involved sponsoring their pre-Oscar party in 2009, and to-date—through efforts from General Motors and the GM Foundation dating back to 2000—we have donated more than $600,000 in funding to Global Green including $50,000 in support of Global Green’s “Greening the Rustbelt Initiative.”

I’m grateful that, in all the years between the death of the EV1 and the continuation of its legacy in the Volt, Global Green didn’t outright drop us in the evil bucket along with Darth Vader (I was known in some circles for a period as “Barth Vader”).

The lesson, for me, was never to give up on a good partnership based on one or two bad experiences. Behaviors and opinions can change when you have the perseverance to pursue a good relationship.

Each year our commitment to Global Green is bigger and better, and in turn our affiliation gives us access to an audience that is genuinely concerned with the environment and isn’t afraid to hold our feet to the fire.

Last week’s party ended with a performance by all-time great Willie Nelson, who was preceded by an auction that included, as its big ticket item, a guitar signed by Nelson and the opportunity to appear side-by-side with him in a PSA for Global Green. Now I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty, but bidding was tense and exciting and…let’s just say, you may see yours truly on the small screen in the near future.