Another announcement from the Governor on
her mission to reduce Hawaii's carbon footprint.
It comes just a week after she unveiled plans
for an electric car network. Last week, a
company pledged to build the infrastructure
needed for electric cars to run.
This announcement involves bringing a fleet
of electric vehicles to Hawaii roads.Governor
Linda Lingle's plan to steer Hawaii away from
its dependence on oil takes a new turn.
This is a model of the electric car fleet coming
to Maui County."It does everything you expect
a vehicle to do except it doesn't pollute," said
Dan Elliott, Phoenix Motorcars CEO.In a deal
with Maui Electric, car maker Phoenix
Motorcars signs on a plan to test the vehicles,
using MECO's grid to power them up.
The goal is to tap into unused clean energy.
"Some renewable sources continue to make
energy overnight while we're sleeping," said
Maui Electric president Ed Reinhardt.
The vehicles go zero to sixty in less than ten
seconds, run 130 miles on a single charge.
And reach up to 90 miles per hour.
Average price tag is $50,000, with incentives
and mandates attached."Nobody likes to
hear about mandates. They didn't like it on
the solar water heating bill on the houses,"
said Governor Lingle. "There were some
people who felt you shouldn't mandate,
you should just let the market decide.
Well, this was the same argument that was
made by the big three automakers."MECO
will test drive 20 to 30 of these cars starting
next year for six months.The goal is to bring
2500 of them to Hawaii by the end of 2009.
Then expand the fleet to 10,000 cars by 2010.
This is all part of the Governor's list of to-do's
under the Hawaii clean energy initiative.
Which outlines her vision for Hawaii to use
70% clean ebergy by 2030.
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