2014-12-18 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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Mr. Rolston: Yeah, so that’s why we try to move the dockets. Ms. Kelly: Well thank you for answering that. Mr. Rolston: You’re welcome. Just a nice picture on slide twenty-one. Our transportation initiatives, we should be, we’re ramping this up right now. So we’ve gone from electric vehicles to hydrogen buses to biodiesel for Mass Transit and charging networks for people who do want to own electric vehicles which they do work out cheaper per mile, per gallon, especially in some of the new plans with the leases. When you’re leasing a Nissan Leaf or a Chevy Volt, I think you’re savings, if you’re driving a lot, are significant over the cost of the vehicle so there’s some good programs out there. I don’t recommend an electric vehicle for everyone on this island because they only go 70-mile range and if you get stuck somewhere. I do recommend things like the Chevy Volt so that you have an internal combustion engine plus an electric battery and that’s why we picked the Chevy Volt. We’re building hydrogen fueling stations and like I mentioned before, we have the best biodiesel in the world, that’s a 5.5 million gallon per year facility. The island uses 11 million gallons per year so if we built another facility, we covered all our usable needs with an on island biodiesel refinery which is very handy to have in a civil defense event, where barges can’t get to the, so if we have our own indigenes fuel and hopefully at lower prices which I think we’re going to get lower prices, we have fuel on island. The next… Ms. Kelly: I got a question for you. Mr. Rolston: Sure. Ms. Kelly: The charging station for electric vehicle, how much does it cost a charging station? Mr. Rolston: Not very much. So if you were to just go to one of the big stores like Lowe’s or, and pick up a charger, I think you can get one for $500, Level 2, which is 240 volts. So that will charge a Chevy Volt in three hours. So if you have Nissan Leaf, it takes eight hours. The Level 3 charger, which there’s only one on island, is called a fast charger is at, there’s one at the Mauna Lani, that will charge in 20 minutes. So a Tesla pulling up can get a charge in 20 minutes and … Ms. Kelly: How much does that cost? Mr. Rolston: The Tesla? Ms. Kelly: No, I know a Tesla car, it’s on my Christmas list, but how much is the charger cost? Mr. Rolston: About $50,000 and it uses as much power as this facility uses at night. So it’s not a decision that County would make and buy a $50,000 charger, it’s kind of we’re waiting for the price to come down; but there is a location, maybe the Mauna Kea rest stop would be a good location for fast chargers, so we’re working with a couple companies, ‘cause if you can get up the hill on electric vehicles and get a fast 11