Source: http://www.hybridcars.com/lapds-multi-million-dollar-electric-fleet-allegedly-goes-unused-unloved/ . . . Back in June of 2016, the LAPD awarded BMW with a contract to provide 100 battery-powered i3 hatchbacks as part of a plan to enhance its public image. At the time, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told the press, “We should be thinking green in everything we do,” adding that the electric BMWs would “also save money and resources.” Fast forward to 2018 and the contract is beginning to look like a good way to waste millions of dollars. The LAPD agreed to lease the vehicles, effectively doubling its electrified fleet, for three years. The logic was that the gas savings would offset the $1.4 million it would cost the police force to apprehend them from BMW. While that sounds wonderful, there is a problem — the LAPD isn’t driving them. . . . Hot Dog! Buyer's market coming. At the time, I knew they should have been BMW i3-REx and CARB members forced to drive them. Bob Wilson
This article has a list of mileage on some of the cars. LAPD is apparently barely using its large fleet of BMW i3 electric vehicles | Electrek
this may be more widespread than is being reported. my daughter worked at the vermont department of transportation, where none of the phev's were ever plugged in.
Charge the employee for the fuel used on any trip and priorities would change. I've long felt an employee should have a 'per-diem' budget for miles that they are expected to pay for out of their pocket re-embursed at a fixed rate. Driving a Prius, three trips paid for all of my commuting gas for the week. So let the employee sign-out any car but get a fix rate, per diem, to drive the miles. Use rental car technology to track the miles and fuel level. Tailor the policy to make EV miles a little profitable and gas miles, expensive. Bob Wilson
maybe I can buy a second one and wire the battery to my existing i3's battery in parallel then it will almost be a real car... almost.
Just goes to show the LAPD has too many vehicles in their fleet. No need to replace 100 cars that weren't driven. I am sure other agencies are just as wasteful.
That's really counterproductive. Putting law enforcement on a per diem for driving would just have them spending more time at the donut shop. They should never have been used for this subsidy to CARBs priorities. Other departments have bought hybrids or phevs and they are used. This is just anouther form of waste fraud and abuse by the california government where they want to use tax money for policing to promote their policy for short run bevs. State of california of course has wasted a lot more money on other bad priorities. City of Austin has a large number of hybrids in the fleet. These are regularly used. The city with subsidies from mercedes also has a number of short run bevs in a ride share experiment. Why even buy the cars in the first place? When individuals buy plug-ins they plug them in (except for according to surveys in california where some buy them just for the carpool sticker). When governments do it, they often don't care. Yes this is not just california, and plug-ins are only a tiny part of the waste fraud and abuse. If we stick with transportation california spends $5.80 for every mile of state controlled highway, texas spends $1. Texas should probably spend more to build more, but texas appears to actually do a better maintenance job with that $1 than california does with 5.8x. Because of some local conditions california could probably cut it to $2/mile.
Given the goal, saving money, the trick is to provide economic incentives to the employees to save money. Even small amounts work. Bob Wilson
No problem as the dollar will inflate to the point we'll only pay 50 cents on the dollar ... if we're lucky. Bob Wilson
Don't worry Bob. Just like the tax rebates run out on the alternative vehicles, we all know the tax rates (and prices) will go back up on us again just as soon as the other guys are back in charge.
