A lot of the credit goes to Nate Vanderschaaf, who flew here with a
line-of-credit for $1.85 million to break the log-jam.

LADWP staff today, at the regular Board meeting, reported that they
had progress at negotiations with Toyota, and that Toyota was
negotiating a lease/purchase agreement for all the DWP RAV4-EV.

Commissioner Nichols stated that some of the emails about damage and
dislike were curious, because other fleet drivers seemed to love the
Toyota RAV4-EV. The Board wanted to know of anectdotal evidence of
driver dissatisfaction, and wanted regular reports of Toyota RAV4-EV
use and status.

President Nahai stated that it was the order of the previous Board
that staff had been following, and, once it had been called to their
attention, they immediately reversed the policy.

The Board stated that they intended to keep the Toyota RAV4-EV on
the streets and in use, although my proposal that they "rent" them
out to willing residential solar ratepayers so far has not been
accepted.

So if this claim of staff is correct, it's a sort of complete
victory, even if we can't yet buy or drive the RAV4-EV. At least
the option is open.

At one time, DWP did lend cars to customers, so this is not too
outre an idea.

This is a great accompaniment to LADWP's commitment to a "green
vision" for L.A., a plan for "green buildings", and a catalogue of
L.A. city buildings and resources in terms of energy and water use.
The equivalence of "energy == water" is well-known to DWP.