Gary Giddings

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91040

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 11, 2011
Messages
1,120
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Gary Giddings passed away today. Known as GaryGid, he was active on this forum starting before the LEAF was available, encouraging the adoption of EVs, founding a still active EV meeting group in Orange County, CA, and using his technical skills to understand and report on the behavior of the LEAF. He patiently shared his knowledge of all things electric with those of us navigating the then unfamiliar world of EVs.

He will be missed.
 
https://imgur.com/Y15jiZO

Gary loved to eat out with a group of friends at a buffet restaurant that would let us sit around and chat for hours. He invited anyone on MNL interested in meeting up for breakfast in Southern California to get together at a Home Town Buffet in Santa Ana and talk and learn about the Nissan Leaf when it was the first BEV of the modern era. Members came from as far away as San Diego to the south, Santa Monica to the west, Sunland and Palmdale to the north and Claremont and the San Bernardino mountains to the east. So this was truly a Southern California Leaf group. As 91040 mentioned, Gary attracted an enthusiastic group starting in August 2010, months before any Leafs had been delivered. Early on, Gary and other engineers in the group taught us about EVSEs, charging dynamics, NEMA plug standards and a lot more. A hot topic at the time was our expected delivery dates, mostly in early 2011 for those quick enough to get their $100 deposits in to Nissan quickest.

Soon, we started receiving our cars and showing them off in the HTB parking lot, and gave a lot of test drives and rides. Gary and one of his engineer buddies from the group connected a laptop to the OBDII port of Gary's Leaf and started trying to decipher the data flowing out of it. They soon identified a data type that acted like a measure of battery charge, topping out at 293 and dropping toward zero as the car's range dropped. Over breakfast, one of our more witty members (91040) insisted that this new and very useful data type needed a name, since it had no inherent units. Since Gary was instrumental in its discovery, it was decided to call it the GID.

One of Gary's outstanding qualities was his generosity and his exuberant interest in helping others and sharing his knowledge. True to form when it came to helping Leaf owners to display more helpful data on their cars' batteries' status, Gary designed the GID meter. This was a small meter box that could be plugged into the OBDII port on the Leaf and had a display that could be toggled to show the GIDs remaining, as well as some other quantities such as battery temperature. Using his outstanding building skills, Gary started building and selling the GID meters out of his Laguna Hills home, and they were in high demand. Eventually, the LeafSpy app was created, and while it offered vastly more data in a much more usable form, the GID remained central to its function and is forever named for one of its discoverers (well, discovered after Nissan invented it).

Gary never stopped enthusiastically welcoming more and more EV enthusiasts to the breakfast meetings, and they became a twice-a-month event, shifting to different restaurants to allow easier travel for various members. When Chris Howell from Palmdale created his own EVSE as a project, he conferred with Gary and other group members and created Open EVSE. Chris even hosted an EVSE build party at one member's warehouse space, and several members walked away with a good start to making their own EVSEs. Tony Williams from San Diego came to the meeting often to talk tech with Gary and other mentors, and he became very involved in EV charging, eventually starting his own successful company. EDIT: Back in about 2012, Gary brought along a young neighbor, Jeremy Whaling, a recent EE graduate from UC Irvine, who was excited by the idea of driving an EV. Jeremy absolutely soaked up the mentorship over many breakfasts and fast forward a few years and he was driving a Leaf, added a Brusa charger, was working for CAL ISO and then Honda and now he represents EVgo strongly at trade shows etc.

As more EVs from different manufacturers became available, members added to their fleets or traded their Leafs for other EVs, and the group became the Southern California EV group. But many members came back in their original 2011 Leafs, most with updated batteries, and some still drive them today.

To all who knew Gary and who benefited from his good humor, his welcoming spirit, his generosity, his detailed and vast knowledge and his friendship, he will be missed, and very much appreciated. When Covid hit and buffet restaurants closed, Gary immediately looked for a medium to continue the friendly conversation. His core group of friends who stayed in close touch with him over Zoom from early 2020 through his brave fight against prostate cancer will miss him and never forget him. He would have celebrated his 81st birthday on February 8.
 
Bummer! I never got to meet Gary esp. since I live hundreds of miles north.

For newer folks, the original gid meter looked like https://saxton.org/tom_saxton/2012/01/leaf-soc-meter-build.html. He's mentioned a bunch of times at https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/automobiles/nissan-leafs-true-believers-wont-leave-well-enough-alone.html. I've met and seen several of the folks in the pics there.
 
Thanks for posting.
As an early (Leaf) adopter, I benefited from Gary's work (I used a plug-in GID meter for years).
He will be missed.
 
With a very heavy heart I thank you all for everything you've been doing.

I have nothing but the fondest of memories of Gary. All of the wonderful and kind things he has done will live on in all of us. He was my hero.

I will miss him dearly. I've never met anyone with a bigger heart!
 
The world has lost a great engineer.

cwerdna said:
He's mentioned a bunch of times at https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/automobiles/nissan-leafs-true-believers-wont-leave-well-enough-alone.html.
For those bothered by the paywall, you can read the copy on archive,org, though I only see one photo.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220828113125/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/automobiles/nissan-leafs-true-believers-wont-leave-well-enough-alone.html

Edit: Oops, the photos are there, just very slow for me in Australia.

The slideshow is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20151112123029/http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/10/16/automobiles/16hack-slideshow.html
 
RIP Gary :cry: , the world has lost a kind hearted soul, an amazing engineer, brilliant mind and and a very good friend to the EV community :(

Boomer put it best and said it well (still hard for me to put down what I want to say), Gary was always there to help and when we first got our Leaf in 2013, Gary was all about helping and hacking! Even when the Rav4EV came out him and Robert (RIP :cry: ) were all over that to help out.. true friends.

As you can imagine, I've taken ALOT of pics over the years, the various HTB meets, EV and other events so I'm gathering pics to post and will post them here.

One thing's for certain, the GID is famous world wide and will live on forever. :cool:

Gary's code he help me fix back in 2013...
gary-genius.jpg


This is Lakewood HTB 11-9-13.. and I just missed Boomer taking off.. but most of us where there..
lakewood11-9-13.jpg


More pics to come shortly..
 
Boomer23 said:
He invited anyone on MNL interested in meeting up for breakfast in Southern California to get together at a Home Town Buffet in Santa Ana and talk and learn about the Nissan Leaf when it was the first BEV of the modern era.

Do these still happen?
 
Rest in peace, Gary.

Boomer23 said:
Back in about 2012, Gary brought along a young neighbor, Jeremy Whaling, a recent EE graduate from UC Irvine, who was excited by the idea of driving an EV. Jeremy absolutely soaked up the mentorship over many breakfasts and fast forward a few years and he was driving a Leaf, added a Brusa charger, was working for CAL ISO and then Honda and now he represents EVgo strongly at trade shows etc.

Without his generosity, things would certainly be a bit different in my world. A shame I haven't seen him in a few years, there's quite a bit I wanted to share about the EV industry now that I'm right in the middle of it. Oh well.

With the pandemic slowly fading away, I hope we can have some sort of weekend breakfast thing every once in a while. Life is short.
 
JeremyW said:
Rest in peace, Gary.


Without his generosity, things would certainly be a bit different in my world. A shame I haven't seen him in a few years, there's quite a bit I wanted to share about the EV industry now that I'm right in the middle of it. Oh well.

With the pandemic slowly fading away, I hope we can have some sort of weekend breakfast thing every once in a while. Life is short.


Memorial breakfast meet. Sounds good.
 
A Celebration of Life followed by a BYO/potluck picnic for Gary will be held on Saturday, February 18 beginning at 11 am at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley. The gathering will take place in the Urban Natural Area in the north east quadrant the park. Enter the park off Edinger Avenue at the Ward Street entrance. Park in one of the parking lots near the Natural Area, Parking H is the closest, with Parking I or G, and overflow parking on the back side of the Natural Area as options. Parking/Entrance fee is $5 on weekends. Please arrive around 10:45 am so that the Celebration can start on time at 11 am.

This will be a happy occasion in which to remember Gary, so please feel free to dress as you would for any casual occasion.

The BYO picnic gathering will take place on the lawn between the Natural Area and the lake. We will have two shade covers and tables. We will try to locate our picnic area near barbecues for those wanting to grill. Please bring your own food and drink and chairs and an item to share if you would like to.

Please feel free to bring spouses, family members. And please spread the word to other members of the EV community who may have known Gary and or who joined us in the past at some of our many breakfasts.
 
Please note: The parking lot designations in my message above were taken from a map that has been revised. My post above has been edited and is now correct. The correct parking lots are : Best choice: Lot H, Second choices: Lots I or G. Overflow parking is behind the Natural Area. Thanks.
 
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