The municipalities of Saanich and Victoria are hoping to save money by partnering for an order of 13 electric vehicles.
Saanich will receive four of the yet-to-be-chosen cars and boost its city fleet to a total of nine vehicles, four of which are Nissan Leafs and one Mitsubishi i-MiEV used by Saanich Police.
“We’re certainly proud to have a fleet of electric cars this big, I believe it’s one of the biggest in the province,” said Saanich Mayor Richard Atwell. “By working together we can offer greater cost savings for taxpayers while meeting our carbon emission reduction goals.”
While the discount for making a mass order is still unknown (the request for proposal is open until Sept. 22), each car will qualify for $8,250 in provincial rebates. Five thousand of that comes from B.C.’s Clean Energy Vehicle incentive (available until March 31, 2018) and $3,250 from the B.C. Scrap-It program, for which you must retire a fossil-fueled vehicle at the same time.
Each vehicle is projected to save nearly $3,000 compared to gas vehicles and save seven tonnes of carbon over the car’s lifetime.
The cars are in line with the B.C. Climate Action Charter, to which Victoria and Saanich have committed to becoming carbon neutral local governments. Both Victoria and Saanich have an ambitious community-wide greenhouse gas reduction target of 33 per cent by 2020.
In Victoria, the new nine electric passenger cars will replace six cars and three vans. In Saanich, the four vehicles will replace two cars and provide two new vehicles.
The new vehicles will be on the street before year end.