Soon, Los Angeles will become even more sustainable with a commitment by Mayor Eric Garcetti and city departments to lease green energy vehicles.
Garcetti, speaking at a news conference Friday outside Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, announced a commitment to lease 160 pure battery EV vehicles, which he said will give L.A. the largest pure EV fleet in the nation.
Also, 128 plug-in hybrids will be leased, which Garcetti said would save taxpayers money and advance sustainability goals. Earlier this year, Garcetti released the Sustainable City pLAn, to help make the city more sustainable and deliver environmental and economic benefits.
“When we laid out our sustainable city plan … we promised that 50% of new city fleet vehicles purchased each year would be EV by 2017,” Garcetti said. “Now we’re fulfilling that promise ahead of schedule.”
The Los Angeles police, fire and general services departments and the Department of Water and Power will together lease the 160 battery electric vehicles, and the DWP and General Services Department will lease the additional 128 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
“EVs make environmental and economic sense to the city of Los Angeles, and LADWP is pleased to support the mayor’s goal to have EVs become the majority of our fleet,” DWP General Manager Marcie Edwards said in a statement.
A hundred of the battery electric vehicles will be dedicated to the LAPD and will be used by detectives, investigators and administrative employees. The LAPD is also being loaned a Tesla Model S P85D and a BMW i, which were on display outside police headquarters on Friday.
The vehicles will be used for testing and research by LAPD technical experts to determine how the techonology can support future needs.
“You can see right here behind me, the future,” Garcetti said, gesturing toward the Tesla and BMW.
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