Last week, there was the announcement to make Hawaii even greener by introducing the Better Place electric vehicle infrastructure into the tropical islands. This week, green car manufacturer Phoenix Motorcars has made the announcement that Hawaii will be testing its fleet of EV’s.
Governor Linda Lingle made both announcements that she would like to see electric vehicles adopted widely by the Hawaiian Islands by 2012. The adoption of EV’s and the supporting electric infrastructure will create jobs, support economic growth, reduce emissions and serve as a model for other states and countries as well.
Currently, Hawaii imports over 90-percent of its energy in the form of fossil fuels but has been researching wind, solar, biodiesel and even hydrogen development over the past few years to wean itself of its dependence. Making the 50th state in the union a Better Place is part of the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative.
Now, I haven’t talked about Phoenix Motorcars in about a year. They had ambitions of rolling out test fleets of their SUT and SUV EV’s in 2008, but Hawaii will serve as a quality launching point for their vehicles.
Phoenix Motorcars has signed on with Maui Electric to test the electric sport utility trucks (SUT) around the island. The goal is to move from 10-percent to 70-percent clean energy for Hawaii by 2030.