The state's largest airport is set to purchase its first two all-electric vehicles as part of a long-term initiative to reduce the carbon footprint of its 30-vehicle fleet.
The staff at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field want to acquire two Columbia ParCar Mega trucks for $54,914. The trucks are street-legal, have a 50-mile range on a single six-hour charge, can accept short-term recharges, have a maximum speed of 35 mph and can carry a 1,100-pound payload.
The trucks produce no greenhouse-gas emissions.
The request won a recommendation Wednesday from the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission's lease and consultant selection committee. If approved by the full commission at its regularly monthly meeting Tuesday, the vehicles should be at Clinton National by the end of the year, airport officials said.
The electric trucks would replace a small pickup and a pool car, both of which are between 12 and 15 years old. The truck runs on gasoline while the car can use compressed natural gas or gasoline.
Among its fleet of cars and light trucks, 12 can run on compressed natural gas, said Elwin Jones, the airport's purchasing director. Another vehicle is a hybrid electric model, he said. The airport has two more compressed natural gas vehicles and one hybrid electric on order, Jones added.
Compressed natural gas vehicles can produce up to 40 percent less nitrogen oxide and 80 percent less particulate matter than vehicles running on gasoline. They get about the same mileage as gasoline-powered vehicles.
The initiative began 10 years ago when the airport installed a compressed natural gas fueling station on the airport property and purchased four used pickups that could run on the alternative fuel.
But airport officials say that as the alternative-fuel-vehicle industry evolves, they want to take advantage of it when the opportunity presents itself.
"This is the natural evolution to what we've been doing -- in this case replacing a fossil-fueled vehicle with an electric vehicle, where the mission of the vehicle aligns itself with the capabilities of the current technology," Ron Mathieu, the airport's executive director, told the committee.
Both of the electric vehicles, if the commission approves the purchases, would be generally confined to the airport property, airport officials said. One will be assigned to the airport's two plumbers and the other to the two electricians.
"We needed to have vehicles specific to a skill set in our maintenance department," said Randy Ellison, the airport facilities director.
In response to questions from committee members, airport officials say the vehicles' price -- each costs $15,757 with $11,700 worth of options, including heating and air conditioning, van body, strobe light and a ladder rack -- is competitive with the prices of the compressed natural gas vehicles but don't require fuel purchases and are projected to have greatly reduced maintenance costs.
"Even though it sounds high, it's a really good price for what you're getting," said Bob East, the committee chairman. "The only bad experience I've had ... is that the advertised 50 miles between charges is something that you usually don't get."
The airport tested the vehicles before asking the commission for permission to purchase them.
"Staff was OK with them," Ellison said. "They are worried they have a max speed of 35 mph, but these don't need to leave the airport."
He added that the vehicles will have to go off the airport to service tenants in buildings "outside the fence."
Given that it isn't uncommon to see electric vehicles on area streets these days, Mathieu said Clinton National is looking at installing charging stations in the airport parking deck.
"It's only natural that if we move in that direction, we accommodate our customers who have moved in that direction," he said.
Metro on 08/14/2014