Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Ballard Gambles $32 Million With Electric Car Fleet Operator With No Track Record

The City of Indianapolis is the guinea pig, so to speak, to determine whether Michael Brylawski's latest electric car venture will be anymore successful than his last. Mayor Greg Ballard announced the City has inked a 7-year, $32 million contract with Brylawski's brand new company company, Vision Fleet, to lease 425 plug-in hybrid and pure electric cars by 2016. Vision Fleet plans to buy cars from local automobile dealers and then lease them back to the City's Department of Public Works. Vision Fleet will be responsible for maintaining and managing the fleet. Supposedly, the deal will save taxpayers money, although we would be remiss if we didn't point out that every taxpayer savings promised by Ballard during his two terms as mayor has turned out to be untrue.
According to a city press release, each gasoline-powered sedan in Indy’s fleet would have cost taxpayers about $9,000 per year over the next decade, including purchase, fuel, maintenance and insurance. The Vision Fleet vehicles will cost about $7,400 per year over that period, saving taxpayers about $1,600 annually per vehicle.
Lotter said the city will pay its annual fees to Vision Fleet through the savings on fuel and other vehicle costs. He said the city's total fleet costs, including payments to Vision Fleet, will be "nominally less" this year, and will decline by 2016. City officials couldn't immediately specify total fleet costs.
So they don't even know what total fleet costs are, but they're sure there's a cost savings in their somewhere. According to the IBJ's report, the administration put out an RFI to find financing for a fleet conversion, and the respondents were traditional vehicle-financing companies. Vision Fleet did not respond to the RFI. I'm not sure why the leasing of these vehicles wasn't publicly bid, but it seems that none of the state's procurement laws apply to this corrupt administration and nobody really gives a damn. DPW says it would have cost $12 to $13 million to buy the cars outright. Really? Who pays for all of the electrical charging stations that will need to be installed? What's the tab for that?

Brylawski's last electric car venture, Bright Automotive, went belly up after he blew through $15 million. He blamed the federal government for not providing his company with a $450 million low-interest loan as the reason for his business' failure. The City of Indianapolis is Vision Fleet's only customer. I repeat, we are the company's first and only customer. It looks like the Boulder, Colorado-based company slapped up a website just in time for today's announcement. I feel for Ballard's successor already. He or she is going to be spending most of their first term figuring out how to undo all of the bad deals this mayor has done that will cost this city dearly for decades to come.

UPDATE: Fellow blogger Pat Andrews mentions these dates that are noteworthy:
  • Vision Fleet Funding and Indy Vision Funding were formally incorporated to do business in Indiana on March 19, 2014. Vision Fleet Funding was originally incorporated on August 6, 2013 in the state of Delaware.
  • The company's contract with DPW was signed by Brylawski and DPW Director Loris Miser on February 8, 2014. The company should not have been allowed to sign a contract with the City until it had been incorporated to do business in this state.
But check this out. The registered business address for Indy Vision Funding is Indy Partnership's offices in Suite #1800 of the Chase Tower. So now we have a government-funded nonprofit acting as agent for an out-of-state company with no track record being awarded a sweetheart deal with the city. I can only guess how many crimes have been committed with this deal, but Ballard need fear not. We don't have either a federal or county prosecutor capable of prosecuting public corruption. Yet another reason for all of your dirty Chicago pols to relocate to Indianapolis where you can steal public dollars all you want with impunity. Andrews also points out that the supposed savings could only be realized by buying more than 100 fewer cars than are in the current fleet of city cars. Once again, the local media just prints press releases for the administration rather than doing actual reporting that seems to be left to volunteer bloggers these days.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

The RFI was just a ruse to get information from other potential bidders and give it to the charlatan behind this company. The deal was fixed just like every other contract awarded by the city.

Anonymous said...

Slightly off topic, and in today's Star we see that the airport is going to double it's solar farm. Off course since solar energy is three to four times more expensive than IPL's generated electricty the users of IPL energy are forced to subsidize the solar farm. And, of course, we hear the usual disclaimer that this amounts to only several cents a month to the average customer.

Why do the ratepayer's of IPL have to subsidize the airport? Just how much money annually do the ratepayer's of IPL "subsidize" the airport? And is there anything in this town that remotely resembles ethical governance?

Gary R. Welsh said...

I believe the lion's share of the profits from that solar endeavor are going to the political cronies who were awarded the contract to erect it. I think they just make a land lease payment to the airport. Courtesy of our state legislature, they don't have to pay any property tax on their valuable improvements to the property.

Anonymous said...

Does that include the user fees to pay for the lost parking revenue. Remember, everytime the city bags a parking spot, they have to pony up the lost revenue, 24/7

Jon said...

So what is the legal basis for the airport to be paid more than the going rate for their solar energy?

Gary R. Welsh said...

The IURC allows public utility companies to pay up to 8 times their regular rate for electricity generated by solar power. Thank your environmental terrorists for that. The airport leased the land to this newly-formed company that included a bunch of Ballard campaign contributors which built and operates the solar farm on the airport's land. They are getting the profits from it.

Anonymous said...

Is there no way to stop this guy? All these shenanigans....it's frightening!

Anonymous said...

THIS ABSOLUTELY CRIMINAL! ...but Prosecutor Terry Curry "has been tough on crime." Yeah, a city with record crime perpetuated by its elitist political class. I detect the putrid smell of the Kremlin, or the Forbidden City.

Anonymous said...

So the airport leases the land and it's still tax exempt! And the lessor then get paid 3 to 4 times the value of their electricity. What's wrong with this picture?

Where Diognes when we really need him?

Who are the members of the IURC who perpetrated this fiasco? What are their industry affliations?

Anonymous said...

How about an answer to Anonymous 9:29 PM? nquiring minds want to know.

Anonymous said...

I think the U.S. attorney general should be asked to audit the state of Indiana from top to bottom for the last several decades. I wonder if that's even possible?

Anonymous said...

Gary, thought this was interesting news : http://ngtnews.com/vision-fleet-added-to-gsa-schedule-to-provide-ev-fleet-solutions/

Anonymous said...

Pricing Information! https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/ref_text/GS33F0056V/GS33F0056V_online.htm

Anonymous said...

VisionFleet GSA Pricing Information!

https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/ref_text/GS33F007DA/0P5CC7.38U826_GS-33F-007DA_VISIONFLEETPRICELIST17DEC2015.PDF