HILO — The Hilo car dealership that had already set aside five electric hybrid vehicles in Mayor Billy Kenoi’s preferred color was the sole bidder on a $234,536 sealed bid solicitation opened earlier this week. HILO — The Hilo car
HILO — The Hilo car dealership that had already set aside five electric hybrid vehicles in Mayor Billy Kenoi’s preferred color was the sole bidder on a $234,536 sealed bid solicitation opened earlier this week.
The cars are part of Kenoi’s push to “lead by example” and will be based at the West Hawaii Civic Center, which has three two-vehicle charging stations powered by rooftop photovoltaic cells. The County Council Finance Committee put its stamp of approval on the concept Jan. 18.
The formal invitation for bid issued Feb. 27 didn’t specify the make and model; nor did it specify the color, saying instead the cars should be “manufacturer’s standard, silver, white or black. All colors should be the same for fleet uniformity.”
But a Feb. 24 email from Managing Director Bill Takaba to the group putting the purchasing specifications together made it clear: “I believe the mayor’s preference is to have five black vehicles so they stand out. Second choice is to have another color, but all the same.”
Big Island Toyota had put the five black 2012 Chevy Volts aside before the invitation for bids even came out. Sales Director Calvin Koga acknowledged he’d spoken with Kenoi before he submitted a bid on the cars.
“We’ve had different conversations with the mayor and with different people and that came up,” Koga said earlier this month.
The county rushed the bid process in order to capitalize on state and federal rebates of up to 20 percent of the purchase price that were thought to expire March 31. The sole bid now goes to the county’s Department of Research and Development for evaluation. Deputy Director Laverne Omori said $200,000 for the vehicles is coming from the county’s Mass Transit Agency and $43,000 from Research and Development.
The $46,907.21 for each car includes $2,463 for an extended warranty of four years or 34,000 miles beyond the factory warranty of three years or 36,000 miles.
State procurement law prohibits collusion on prices prior to bid openings, but there is no apparent prohibition against discussing details of merchandise prior to an invitation for bid going out.
Jackie DeLuz, vice president of operations for the company, said there are few dealerships on the Big Island that carry electric and hybrid electric vehicles, because it takes specialized training and certification for mechanics. The county’s bid request specified the vehicles must carry extended warranties and be serviced locally.
“We don’t bid on a lot of fleet vehicles,” DeLuz said, “but this just happens to be a vehicle that we have. We have the cars and we can service them.”
She said the company could deliver the cars immediately, if it gets the contract.
Kenoi had said he thought the black cars would really stand out, but he’d let the process move forward whatever the color.
“It never was to have to be this color or that color,” Kenoi said. “It was more important that it all be one color.”
There are limited choices of electric and hybrid cars for the Big Island, because of the distances that must be traveled between charges and the lack of dealerships offering sales or service here. The Volt is the most expensive of the group.
The problem with the Volt, said Christopher Juniper, a Denver sustainability consultant with a speciality in transportation, is its big battery requires the vehicle to use more gasoline once the electric charge runs out. DeLuz said the Volts can go 100 miles on a charge. After that, the Volt’s gas mileage is only 37 mpg, compared to the Toyota Prius’ 49 mpg on gasoline.
“The Volts cannot be justified from a cost standpoint, period,” Juniper said in an email to West Hawaii Today. “I’m all for governments and people maximizing their sustainability performance, and electric vehicles can help do that, especially if the source of the electricity is a sustainable one like wind/solar/geothermal. But I also hate to see governments or people do anything that’s not cost-effective in the name of sustainability and that’s likely what the new electric vehicles will be until battery prices drop by about half or gasoline prices increase dramatically.”
