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Technology Stocks : Energy Conversion Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WALT REISCH who wrote (3173)	2/10/1999 5:11:00 PM
From: Don Devlin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

Sunday, February 7, 1999 Weber Will Pull the Plug On 2 Trucks Electric vehicles bought in 1993 never worked THE ASSOCIATED PRESS OGDEN -- Weber County officials have decided to sell two electric vehicles they say never worked well. The electric vehicles, both 1994 Ford Ranger pickup trucks, are sitting dead in the county shops because their batteries won't hold enough juice to light a flashlight and there is no way to fix them. County commissioners last week voted to sell the trucks as surplus. The county is trying through the courts to recover its money from the company that sold them. The county health department purchased the trucks in 1993 for $24,100 each. "The whole idea was, if we had an environmental health department, we ought to be looking at alternative forms of transportation," said former County Commissioner Spencer Stokes, who supported the purchase. But health department employees who drove them said the trucks never worked. "I wouldn't give one of those cars to my worst enemy," said Russ Hansen. "That was the biggest waste of money I've ever seen in my life." The company that sold the vehicles claimed they could climb Pike's Peak in Colorado, he said. "So the first day we got them, I said, 'I'll see how well they'll climb,' and I took one up those roads behind (Weber State University) and, by the final two or three blocks, I was going 4 miles an hour," Hansen said. Craig Heninger, the health department's director of administration, said the department did not want the electric trucks, but Stokes insisted on buying them from Battery Automated Technology International, a small California company. In Stokes' defense, Heninger said the trucks would have paid for themselves -- if they had worked. Over a 10-year period, the savings in oil changes, gasoline and other mechanical maintenance would have made up for the extra cost of the trucks. ... sltrib.com editor@sltrib.com Copyright 1999, The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah OnLine is copyrighted. ---