OK, I just saw this in our local paper this Sunday, evidently it moved over AP on the 9th. I searched but didn't see it here!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051209/...ernment_fleets

Interviews with fleet managers in Philly, Ann Arbor, New York and Oregon. Heavy on the-price-difference-won't-be-made-up-by-fuel-savings thing, although they quote the New York guy saying "It was not our mandate to save money," he said. "They're expecting us to pay more for a cleaner tailpipe."
But the cost was apparently too much for Ann Arbor's energy coordinator... "Is this year a good year to demonstrate our greenness by buying a hybrid vehicle?" he said. "And the answer was, 'no.'"

Fred

 

The whole "Hybrids cost too much" thing will probably be abated in the 3rd or 4th generation hybrid systems, when the hybrid premium drops to $2k instead of the $4k-$6k it costs now.

 

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No wonder government is screwed up. All we have to do is point to non-dynamic thinkers like this one and lots of questions about government efficiency are answered.
Not only is this individual wrong about the "premium" but doesn't seem to understand the concept of total cost of ownership. TCO is a very powerful and important way of evaluating the cost of nearly any depreciable and consumable good. If you buy a vehicle and all you have to do to it is fuel it and change the oil every now and then and otehr maintenance costs are reduced due to the design of the vehicle, I bet that TCO will be lower than one of those lower priced cars they are buying instead.

Now that makes sense, and is more in line with TCO.

 

I've seen the City of Houston has a few Priuses in their fleet. I see one being driven sometimes on my way to work but have failed to see which dept. it is. Of course when I see this one it is way out of the Houston limits. This guy must live outside the city and can drive it home.kevin

 

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Wayne quotes the numbers accurately, but the truth is in the breakdown. Edmunds assumes the owner will trade in at 5 years, and makes (particularly in the case of hybrids) wild guesses what depreciation will be.

Bottom line: in the case of hybrids the numbers are a guess, and only directed towards people who plan to dump the car way before it's useful lifetime has expired.

I imagine that three year leases of hybrids is an expensive proposition, which is what fleet managers do, I believe.

 

So, what vehicles did the city managers choose instead ?

SUV's ?

 

It is nice that Edmunds has done us the courtesy of providing these numbers, however I'm most interested in the logic behind their conclusion. What are they assuming? How are they makeing these computations?

• How many miles in the life of the vehicle?
• How many years will it be driven?
• What estimate are they using for LOF service cost?
• How many oil changes are they doing (of course, indexed to miles driven)?
• How much are they estimating those oil changes to be?
• Other maintenance: scheduled items in addition to oil changes, brakes, tires?
• What about insurance costs?

So, I'm skeptical about their numbers. I don't know enough about how they generated those numbers to believe them just yet. Edmunds' editors and contributors haven't been the hybrid's best champion or even a fair evaluator. I guess it colors my judgment of them as a source.

I'm going to suppose here that they are including some ridiculous estimate of battery replacement cost and they are going to estimate its replacement way too early in the car's life. They may also be underestimating the cost of gas, or not even trying to index it for inflation or market forces. Maybe their model isn't sophisticated enough to do that. However, nearly every other model I have seen which takes into account Prius TCO on a constant set of external factors proves that over the long haul the cars are competitive with what is typically used in government fleets if not better than competitive.

One other thing, I don't see too many government fleets around here purchasing any of the cars above, except for Prii. Our government fleets are filled with Taruses, Impalas, and other more traditional mid-sized vehicles. Nearly all of them are V-6s. Nearly all of them aren't built well enough for the service they are expected to do. Pretty much the only car out there that can handle rough service is the Crown Victoria and that is because it is a glorified F-150.

I hear you. And I agree. I'm tired of government waste too. But a good fleet manager should make their own nubmers. Why should they? They know when they liquidate older vehicles. They know the average number of miles driven per year. They know how much fuel they consume and they know how hard the vehicles are driven. They also know the weak points in the cars they buy. They know what it costs to go through a tranny on a car with 60k miles and the impact it has on their bottom line. If a fleet manager isn't re-evaluating their operations and their cost structure, which is almost entirely dictated by the vehicles of their fleet, they should probably find a new job.

In the end Edmund's numbers may be correct, however without knowing the logic they are using to achieve them, I'm stuck being a skeptic. As for my own experience. The Prius is a downright cheap car to drive. I have less frequent oil changes, less frequent fill ups and less fuel consumed per fill-up.

 

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