Cleantech Institute Joins Forces With EZ-Xpo - Launching World's 1st Electric Vehicle Marketplace To Create Jobs Across US

Online, November 6, 2013 (Newswire.com) - eZ-Xpo today announced a strategic partnership agreement with Cleantech Institute and EV Centers of America to jumpstart local job opportunities in every city, state throughout the country by helping EV and Cleantech expand their reach using virtual expo marketplaces, virtual trade missions, virtual social learning and virtual job fairs. The first kick-off EV Center Marketplace will complement with the Electric Vehicle Forum event on April 22, 2014 in Diamond Bar, California.

According to the Navigant Research's 2013-2020 Electric Vehicle market forecast, the Electric Vehicle segment will grow at a 31.5% CAGR over the next seven years with a million electric vehicles sold from established models like the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and Tesla Model S to new options like the Chevy Spark EV and other hybrids. With most of the sales coming from California, New York, Washington, and Florida, California is expected to dominate overall sales with more than 800,000 units.

California is preparing for a large demand of skilled and knowledgeable Electric Vehicle (EV) Technicians. To ensure a safe and skilled workforce, all auto technicians will need to retool and learn new skills. The Clean Tech Institute is the first Approved and Eligible Training Provider for the Certified Electric Vehicle Technician training program in the State of California. The CEVT certificate program has been designed to train a new generation of electric vehicle specialists to work in electric vehicle production, repair and maintenance. The 16 week training program covers a comprehensive topic through lectures and hands-on workshops in advanced electric car theory and practice.

"We are excited to partner with eZ-Xpo to jumpstart local business and job opportunities to capitalize on the high emerging growth opportunities of Electric Vehicle market. With the EV Center Network Marketplace, we can create new job opportunities and train electric vehicle technicians in every city, state and all countries throughout the world." said Lloyd Tran, Managing Director of Cleantech Institute and Chairman of EV Center of America.

"Not only will this help accelerate entrepreneurial clean tech innovation for new emerging electric vehicle market and expand local reach and exports, but it will also boost local jobs with eZ-Xpo's Virtual Job Fair Marketplace and crowdsourcing capabilities," he added.
"Clean Tech Institute and EV Centers of America is a new game changing entrepreneurial clean tech organization and we are proud to help them empower all clean tech stakeholders' ecosystems for global collaboration beyond traditional local reach. The EV Center Marketplace is a perfect example of the Regional Innovation Cluster Network to boost innovation and job creation opportunities in building a global entrepreneurial ecosystem," explained Matt Fok, CEO of eZ-Xpo.

"With EV Center Marketplace, every clean tech entrepreneur and local business can showcase their great ideas to local and global customers and partners. With this entrepreneurial environment, we can help accelerate clean tech innovation from cool ideas to commercial stage with joint collaboration with every stakeholder from industry leaders, mentors, and academia," added Fok.

Key features of the EV Center Marketplace include:

1. Virtual Local Business Showcase - Offering unlimited virtual showcase for every clean tech entrepreneur and local business to showcase and collaborate virtually 24/7. Attendees can engage with each exhibitor both on-demand or live via chat.

2. Virtual Business Collaboration: EV Centers of America serves as a neutral site for OEM companies to collaborate on advanced vehicle technology research and field testing. The online portal enables companies to seamlessly share technical information and communicate about advanced vehicle technologies.

3. Virtual Technical Learning Marketplace - EV Center Marketplace can easily and quickly train every auto technician with both on-demand and live video conferencing capabilities. The EV Center Academy will also enable professionals and specialists to mentor every student virtually worldwide.

4. Virtual Job Fair Marketplace - With a single universal login, members of the EV Center Marketplace can easily navigate from Virtual EV Center Expo to Virtual Job Fair through eZ-Xpo Network.

5. Marketing Intelligence - Each virtual booth has built-in marketing analytics to track each attendee activity. Exhibitor can easily identify their best qualified prospect based on their visit duration and the actual marketing content they have viewed.

6. Knowledge sharing: Each virtual booth comes with a variety of online resources like discussion forums, product tours for product documentation and how-to videos to help customers find solutions and solve problems.

The EV Center Marketplace is now open for early adopters. For all early adopters and game changers, please contact Lloyd Tran, at [email protected], Executive Director or Matt Fok, CEO of eZ-Xpo at [email protected].

* Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Here is a short list of sponsors and strategic partners:

• The United States Green Vehicle Council (USGVC)
• BYD Company Limited
• Complete Coach Works
• SUTRAK
• Transportation Power, Inc.
• AMPTRAN Motor Corporation
• Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)
• Foothill Transit
• The San Joaquin Regional Transit District
• The Gardena Municipal Bus Lines
• The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC)
• Advanced Vehicle Technology Academy

About Cleantech Institute
Cleantech Institute (http://cleantechinstitute.org/) is a leading research, consulting and training organization in emerging clean & renewable energy industry. The Clean Tech Institute Research Group is located at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. Our consulting offices and training centers are located in major regions throughout California

About EV Centers of America
EV Centers of America's (http://www.evcenters.net) mission is to meet the needs of the emerging growth electric vehicle industry by providing high value services to public and private organizations and individual customers, while fostering clean, sustainable and healthy transportation to the community at large. EV Centers of America ("EVCA") is network of advanced vehicle technology centers or hubs of multiple functions, located in major regions in California.