Excerpt from: Do Business in Vail!
|
 |
| June 26, 2008 | | Vail hotel leases electric SUV for employees and guests | As gas prices are rising, one local business is responding by turning up the electricity.
To
offset rising gas costs, lower expenses and offer a perk to employees,
the Mountain Haus in Vail leased an electric SUV last month.
The
electric Toyota RAV-4, which gets the cost equivalent of over 200 miles
per gallon of gas, will be used for company and guest errands, Mountain
Haus sales manager Matt Drummet said.
Although he wouldn’t
specify the cost of the vehicle, Drummet said it was comparable to
gas-powered vehicles, but the battery costs around $100,000 to replace.
He said the Toyota RAV-4 electric car is available only to companies.
The RAV-4, a plug-in that runs entirely on electricity, can run 130 miles before it must be recharged, Drummet said.
Drummet
said the hotel reimbursed employees for around 9,000 miles of driving
to run errands for the company last year, and they are hoping to
replace those miles of driving with the electric car this year. He said
employees also take turns driving the electric car home from work one
day a week.
“Everyone’s really excited about it,” he said. “It’s become an employee benefit.”
Gas mileage aside, Drummet is excited that the Mountain Haus hybrid car looks like a normal SUV.
“The
electric car doesn’t have to be a golf cart and it doesn’t have to look
like an egg,” he said. “It can be a full-sized SUV and go 80 miles per
hour on the highway.”
Vail Fleet Manager Todd Scholl said
everyone at the city transportation department is also worried about
the rising gas prices. The town fleet, which includes police cars and
fire department vehicles, contains 12 hybrid vehicles out of 150.
Scholl
said he doesn’t anticipate buying an all-electric car in the near
future, because he hasn’t found any that fit the needs of the drivers.
To
maximize gas mileage, Scholl recommended taking unnecessary weight out
of the car, turning the car off instead of idling, and reducing driving
speed to around 65 miles per hour.
Scholl said Sonnenalp Resort owns several electric golf carts but he doesn’t know of any other electric cars in the area.
The
rise in gas prices has prompted a drop in car sales, but there is still
high demand for hybrid cars, local dealers said. Hybrids use a
combination of electricity and gas as fuel, and electric cars run
entirely on electricity.
Ed Dennis, owner of Avon Autos, said he
has been selling small, fuel-efficient Subarus and Volvos, but the car
business in general has been suffering.
“We’re selling 50 percent of what we were two years ago,” he said. “It’s been a tightening of the belt.”
Ryan
Ramsay, general manager of Summit Ford in Silverthorne, said he has
high demand for the Ford Escape Hybrid, but only gets one hybrid each
quarter from the manufacturer. Summit Ford Sales Manager J.R. Musser
said the Escape Hybrid sells for around $30,000.
Ramsay is
waiting for a delivery that he has already sold. “If I had a lapful of
[hybrids] I could definitely sell them,” he said.
Originally printed in the Vail Daily - click below for article | | |
|
|
