…..and if it doesn`t work out we can drop this puppy into a pothole.

electric vehicles sound cool but purchasing small fuel efficient traditional fuel cars would be cheaper for the city and better for the environment.

So we pay thought the nose for gas to generate taxes for the city to by economical cars….

The batteries don’t last very long in the cold, another poor decision by our city

Experiment with your own money. Why use everybody else`s.
I think Shari herself should buy the car if its such a great plan.
50 grand on an electric car vs 25 grand on a gas hmmm $25,000 worth of fuel goes a long way, yes with emissions.
No wonder there are no electric cars in PG.It is priced beyond doing the proper thing

With the enviroment as an excuse,commonsence goes out the window

Electric Golf carts are cheaper and accomplish the same thing. Every bureaucrat should have a golf cart to run around the city in. I wonder if the city bothered to look up how much a set of batteries for this thing costs. Probably 25% of the cost of the car I bet.

I can’t figure this one out either. With the higher cost of maintining an electric vehicle, you’re not saving anything vs. picking a small gas-consuming fuel efficient vehicle.

Typical token gesture by city hall.Even if this vehicle was on the road 24/7 in place of others it would have no measurable affect on air quality.

$70k wasted on PG air and now $50k here could fund sweeping in late winter or start installing PLC controls on traffic light to keep traffic moving. This would have an noticeable effect on air quality but cleaner air does not provide the photo op standing around an overpriced car does.

If the university is involved and doing a study of how this car works in our climate then I think Nissan should donate the car so they can learn from the experiment…

It costs $50 thousand….! you have got to be kidding me,don’t they get it! any savings with fuel is “lost” when you pay that kind of money…Plus try keeping them warm in winter!colder temperatures can deplete the battery life and the amount of charge a battery can hold, significantly reducing range.Put it mildly,they are not built for northern climates.

The new garbage truck establishes a base line, and records when that vehicle goes above the base line, which means it is wasting fuel!

Then what! it shuts down…

I know I know, they have to use our carbon tax money for something!

A recent US study showed the payback on a hybrid is 7 – 10 years in good climatic conditions. Will a small electric automobile even last 10 years when navigating the pot hole filled laced streets of Prince George. Another waste of taxpayer dollars. Never money for a referendum but always money for the dreamers at city hall.
In Phoenix Arizona golf carts are a means of transportation. A street legal kit is installed, the cart insured, and the carts can be used anywhere but the freeways. Maybe it is time for PG to wake up and smell the roses.

That 50,000 bucks for this glorified golf cart would have been a good down payment on a commercial fully automated POTHOLE PATCHING machine!

BTW, the Toyota Prius Hybrid is almost as efficient and it is even capable (!) of making a return trip to the new weigh scales at Red Rock without having to call for a tow truck.

The Leaf is quite unsuitable for real cold weather driving! When the heater is used for defrosting the windshield, the rearwindow and keeping the car warm the electricity will be sucked out off the battery faster than you can say OMG!

Check out http://www.pythonmfg.com/patchrite.html
A one man pothole patching machine. Looks pretty impressive to me.

I watched a 4 person night shift pothole crew with two vehicles hand bombing ashphault and packing it down with their feet in front of my house in the wee hours of the night. You should see the craters again. Didn’t last two weeks. Complete waste of time and money.

Why do we keep doing the same things over and over and expect different results?

Now we are going to spend $50,000 on some little electric car to study. Hasn’t anyone else in the world already done this study in a similiar climate?

“payback on a hybrid is 7 – 10 years”

This is not a hybrid. This is a 100% electric car.

The issues I have with it are:

1. $50,000 far too much to spend on a car that will get stuck in city potholes.

2. The car apparently has issues in cold weather, not only with batteries but even windows working properly.

3. One does not buy cars that do not have track records of dependability.

4. Test car? Municipal car that can be high profile in the media? …. that tells me that a good part of it ought to have been a donation from Nissan.

5. Test car? Which car(s) in the current City fleet will it be compared to in order to make a decision whether more of these will be bought?

Why is no one deffending this purchase?How many of these electric cars are being used in PG for over a year? Good milage, but what does it take in electricety to keep it defrosted in winter. I would like to see this project being followed up by the media during the year.

Posted from another site.
Nissan warns owners of the all-electric Leaf, which is built to go 100 miles on a single charge, that the actual range will depend on driving and charging habits, temperature and battery age.Besides cold weather wearing on the battery, using certain amenities in cold weather can reduce the car’s driving range up to 50 percent!When temperatures drop,
electric car owners should keep speeds lower, avoid quick acceleration and avoid using all the heating devices at the same time.
With a conventional engine, it is easy to warm up the cabin in the winter because when the car is running, the engine block is hot, and warm air is easily blown into the car’s cabin.

“In an electric machine, because of the way it operates, at a low temperature you don’t have a high-temperature event, so it is not a heat source,” she said.

One remedy is to keep electric cars plugged into the charger more often when it is cold,

So a trip up to the Hart and back in the winter and it as to be plugged in…so now you’ve only exchanged fuel costs for hydro costs. This is not Florida folks…this type of vehicle will “not” be efficient for us northerners.

That’s what you get when you elect someone who’s name has Green in it. It gets taken literally.

Thats a real smart move. Why spend 50 grand when as mentioned earlier all they need to do is downsize the fleet. It mind boggling to see one indivuale riding around in a full size pick up. And the City parking lot is filled with them trucks, Why?
Cheers

Apparently it can take up to 20 hours to charge. I do not know if the City has “pooled” cars that sit in the parking lot ready to go and have multiple drivers. In other words

09:00 – 10:00 = 15 km
10:00 – 11:00 = 20 km
11:00 – 12:00 = 10 km
13:00 – 14:00 = 15 km
14:00 – 15:00 = 25 km
15:00 – 16:00 = 10 km
16:00 – 17:00 = 10 km

Total = 105 km

I would hate to be among the last couple of people in the day checking the car out.

But maybe the City does not use cars in that fashion.

http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/02/nissan-leaf-electric-car-to-get-a-software-upgrade.html

Leaf getting a software upgrade …. “promises to improve performance—specifically, how the battery-powered car estimates its range, or distance it can travel before the car runs out of power.”

Hey folks!I have a good idea for garbage pickup,let the city get a horse and cart and just go around town picking up garbage bags…just think about it,zero emissions,good for the environment,plus the droppings could be used for your lawn!and one more thing, old Betsy wont have to be plugged in.

might work! ;)

What ever they are smoking down there at City Hall I would like some for the party on the weekend!!!

Not a bad idea,however even a horse will have trouble around these streets with pot holes and craters throughout.

When it is hooked up to the tow truck does that still count for zero emissions or do you have to add the tow truck to the total?

The city better check the math. 765 kiljoules does not equal 2.4 liters of gasoline unless of course the higher heating value of gasoline is used which is not the case as the products of combustion are not condensed and heat recovered in an auto engine. Lower heating value should be used.

Buying electric cars just to see how they will work in our climate is easy;

if you are not spending your own money.

Absolutely ridiculous. There is plenty of knowledge out there about this topic, and it all points toward electric vehicles being best suited for warm climates.
Another harebrained idea from City Hall, with encouragement from other politicos and university professors.
metalman.

This eco-idiocy has to be stopped. I’m all for looking after the planet but electric micro-cars & compact flourescents are just feel good nonsense.

Isn’t the real question how much does the electricity cost to drive 100km versus the gasoline?

Have not got the faintest clue what the City pays for either gasoline or electricity. Order of magnitude might be around $2 for electricity versus $3 for gasoline.

How many thousands to replace the battery. What a total wast of money. Just who is the feel good person that came up with this waste of money. Fix the roads idiot, fix the roads. Just who made this decision?

A total wast of taxpayers money in this climate. Who ever made this decision, do you own one or just like wasting the money of others.

A gas powered vehicle is available 24 hours a day. An electric is not.

30 thumbs down comments – 0 thumbs up comments!

What does that mean? Something is amiss with the whole grandiose Leaf scheme!

Just spotted FLUORIDE FREE toothpaste for children in the pharmacy! Fluoride is supposed to be GOOD for children! Of course if a child swallows even a peasized amount of the fluoridated toothpaste parents are supposed to call a poison control center immediately! That’s WHY! It is a poison and EVERYBODY knows it is poisonous, even in small quantities! But, Northern Health and our City officials insist that we must drink it every day and
even shower and bathe with it and so they spend a lot of money injecting it into our tap water!

What does that mean? Something is amiss with that whole grandiose scheme too!

Just my humble opinion, of course, based on the latest scientific evidence!

How about spending the fluoride money on educating the public about daily flossing and brushing?

Or use some of the money to fix potholes!

Was this a press release ? Is Opinion 250 still allowed to talk to the Communications Manager Bone and her hubby the Purchasing Manager Bone ?

I have a propane system for a F-150. I couldn’t give it away. The mechanic up the Hart told me he has about 30 of them in his attic.

My guess is that by buying that car now rather than this October, the results would be less embarrassing. I just paid my utility taxes about an hour ago. This purchase just adds insult to injury. IMO.

The people who made this decision should be given this toy car for severance pay and be sent down the road kicking horse turds. We the taxpayers can’t afford this kind of absurdity.

Some comments:

– I’ve seen Leaf’s around Ottawa and they had a huge fleet of them in the hotel parkade I stayed at Montreal (these were cars that people rented on a per month “car pool” type arrangement), so yes, they are fit for winter climates. Range is quite low from what I understand, but for commuting applications (which is what they were designed for), they are fine.
– I drove a Honda Fit through PG winters for two years and didn’t have ANY issues navigating my way around. Again, small cars work just fine in winter climates.

Those two points aside, IMHO the City is completely out to lunch with this purchase. I just don’t see what it accomplishes. Like others have said, if they want to test how the car works, make a pitch to Nissan to do cold weather testing for them. Heck, make a pitch to all major auto makers to setup cold weather testing facilities in PG. I guess the problem with that is that PG doesn’t really get all that harsh of winters anymore and everyone already had cold weather testing facilities so they missed the boat on that opportunity. Why they would spend 50K on this is beyond me. They could purchase two Honda Fit’s for the same price if they really wanted to add small fuel efficient cars to their fleet. Even then it would only make sense if an older vehicle that was worse on gas was being retired from the fleet.

Absolutely ridiculous use of money. I wonder what the core services review would say about it? Honestly, how did this even pass the cursory sniff test? Incredible!!!!!

Another angle – has anyone researched the worldwide effect of these cars? Sure PG wants to be green but is the emissions of a comparable small fuel efficient car worth it in the grand scheme of things? A little less out the tailpipe but we dam rivers and flood valleys to create the power to charge the batteries that are made from Lithium that is open pit mined out of Chile. Doesn’t being green feel good :)

This is just ridiculous. They laid people off to cut costs and then throw $50k into a big hole in the ground and light it on fire? Nobody that lives here, and is of sound mind, would purchase this toy. Unless they’re filthy rich and completely stupid or if they’re purchasing it with someone else’s money and are completely stupid. The reviews for this car are horrible and indicate that the range is a real problem, especially in temperate climates. That it won’t go as far as even the gauge says. I predict you’re going to spend a lot of time towing this toy to the charing stations.

To add insult to injury, once they realize that this experiment is an abject failure, who are they going to sell it to?

Maybe it’s the long term effects of more than half a century of artificial water fluoridation in Prince George?

Ten diseases contracted from artificial water fluoridation:

1. Dental fluorosis

2. Fatal bone cancer (osteosarcoma)

3. Weakened bones

4. Impaired Hyperactivity and/or mental development, lowered IQ, and dementia

5. Arthritic symptoms

6. Chronic fatigue

7. Gastrointestinal problems

8. Kidney issues

9. Hyperactivity and/or lethargy

10. Disrupted immune system

Prince George water has 175 times more fluoride than Mother’s Milk.

Folks….this is the city of PG. The same people that gave you a roundabout complete with decorative bricks for B-trains to turn on. Brilliant.

Wikipedia actually has a reasonably good article on the car.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf

Unless one comes back to home base to charge the car, whether in a private residence or at work, I wonder how much other locations will charge for “plugging in”. I would think that there would be a markup on the cost of the electricity. In addition, one has to consider the taxes on the kWh rates when making comparison to gasoline/diesel since those advertised fuel prices include all additional charges.

I have lost complete track of whether any of the fuel taxes go to paying for road construction and maintenance. If they do, then these car drivers would be circumventing such taxes, especially if they charge at home or at work.

I can just see it now. If these vehicles become common, the plug ins will be metered separately. ;-)

Hey, I saw those bicks that popped out today when I drove by there. Not very good, is it?

“To add insult to injury, once they realize that this experiment is an abject failure, who are they going to sell it to?”

Northern Health ….

Gus: I havn’t been downtown for quite some time, I’m curious how those brick crosswalks on George St. stood up after a winter of graders and loaders scraping snow and ice ?

I was at the round-a-bout today as well. Not a pretty sight. Bricks are scattered everywhere. Regarding the City buying a Nissan Leaf; they would have been better off getting rid of them gas sucking Hemi powered pickup trucks. Why would you need to have a Hemi powered truck to haul around a few shovels? 50 grand for a car that you can’t drive much? I can see a rise in towing charges! Question: Is there anyone on current council that has some common sense?

I believe strongly in our environment and usually support efforts to reduce emissions or raise awareness. However, many posters here have mentioned a lot of points that popped into my head when I read the article: what cost (both economic and environmental) does the electricity have?; how long will the cars last?; how much benefit coudl we get out of the cost savings if we bought low emission regular cars and used the money for something else?

Let’s look at other options, realistic options, for improving air quality and lowering emissions in teh city. This project doesn’t add up for me.

“Is there anyone on current council that has some common sense?”

Did Council buy this? I thought those kind of things would be left up to administration.

Cheetos I think you are confusing hemi performance and hemi utility engines, two different birds. The hemi name refers to the head design, comes in different displacements. The hemi head actually aids in more efficient fuel burn over a standard head.

I was on George Street today, middle finger. I did not notice any bricks out of place.

Ohh Chocolat Café has opened up a new location across from the Keg. Very nicely done and a lot of decadent goodies with nice seating for a light lunch or morning/afternoon break. Almost like stepping from George Street right into a Robson Street Café.

Looks like another annoucement coming shortly for downtown. Things in PG may just be picking up.

“The hemi head actually aids in more efficient fuel burn over a standard head.”

I could use a head like that. ;-)

It was easier for people to vote for the incumbents rather than people with common sense.

Administration is the problem in our city. What we need is a council that will realize this and deal with it in a swift and stearn manner. We the people elected council to make decisions and run our city. It is councils job to hire administration, so if administration fails, it is councils job to correct it. IMO, council is not strong enough to effectivley deal with administration. The bureaucrats are running our city, not council.

I don’t know guys. 50 grand for a Nissan Leaf sounds crazy. I mean you can buy a Ford Fiesta starting at $14,900 steering wheel included. Now those Fiesta’s can get about 60 miles to a gallon. I’ll put on my Hemi head and take $50,000 divided by $14,900 comes out to 3.35 or 3.4 so we the City could buy 3.4 Fiesta’s for the price of one Nissan Leaf. So if council didn’t know about the purchase they should. 50 grand would go a long way to pay Mayor Green’s assistant for a year. Although different car manufactures have used Hemi head technology, the Hemi’s I was referring to was the Dodge Hemi on the Dodge Trucks, every one I know who has one are not impressed by the gas mileage, matter of fact it sucks to the last drop!

Prince George: “Just spotted FLUORIDE FREE toothpaste for children in the pharmacy! Fluoride is supposed to be GOOD for children!”

Ever thought they might be marketing this to the people who are scared of fluoride toothpaste like yourself, regardless of its effects?

Keep on flogging that dead horse.

So will the city have a big photo-op and a story on it when they get rid of this car too? I challenge them to do that!

I read The Citizen this AM (Thursday). No mention of city halls new car. Maybe the mayor ain’t talking to the Citizen either.