EVW: I’m talking with Robert Saunders of SCE. How many of these vehicles do you have in service?
Robert: We have over three hundred electric vehicles in our fleet. and they’re being primarily used in our Meter-Reader, and Field Service Representative (or 'FSR') applications. And we use some of them for Security Patrol, and we use some of them for our Service Planners as well.
EVW: And you guys are mandated to have a certain number of alternative fuel vehicles in your fleet?
Robert: We use alternative fuel because we have a large fleet of vehicles, and electric seemed to work the best for us. Southern California Gas uses natural gas and so we use the electric vehicles.
EVW: I guess my question was: By law you have to have a certain number of some type of alt-fuel vehicles, no?
Robert: Yes, yes.
EVW: Okay. ...Can you tell us what you’re gonna do, when Toyota takes these back from you?
Robert: Well, right now what’s happening is some of the cars are being re-leased to us, and so we’re going into four year and five year lease programs for the vehicles. When the leases are finally up, we’re probably gonna look at some hybrid technologies, we haven’t really made that determination yet.
EVW: And is it possible you’ll also look at ACPropulsion possibly doing some battery electric vehicles for you?
Robert: I don’t know. .... We’re just looking at all of our options at this point.
EVW: What kind of battery degradation are you seeing at a hundred thousand miles? I noticed the car that I rode in had a hundred thousand miles on it.
Robert: Yeah, I don’t know the data on that. Probably we’d want to talk to some of our people in Pomona[?] Tech Center. ...