Buying vehicles

[AJ_Katz]

Our university is trying to hit carbon neutrality by 2030, which seems to be driving their policies on vehicles.  Our greenhouse vehicle was taken off the fleet due to rust, even though it had just 15k miles.  Now our motorpool has identified an option where we buy a new cargo van to the tune of $60k and also pay a $2500/yr maintenance agreement with them.  Since we only drive this vehicle to transport plants and these are all in town trips with plants, it just does not seem like a good investment for the department to buy a brand new vehicle in this situation.  But ahah! faculty can simply rent their vehicle from the state's motor pool... there by eliminating a vehicle from their fleet... except that there are no cargo vans available for rent, just passenger vehicles.  The ideal vehicle would be a used cargo van and we are seeing vans like that for sale by the state on auction, but apparently Facilities says a $5k used vehicle would likely cost 2-3x that amount because of transportation, inspections, and repairs.  Recently, I attended a multi-state meeting with other department heads in my field.  Several recommended looking into the federal surplus option.  We will look.... but I am so incredibly frustrated by this.  No one in our university seems to care that we need this vehicle to fulfill the mission of our unit.  Anyone else having similar problems and finding solutions?

[simpleSimon]

Not really an answer to your question... but my private university has several "company cars."  They are all leased and replaced about every three years.  As it happens, one of the members of our board of trustees owns an umbrella company with several automobile franchises.  Surprise!  All our vehicles come from one of these dealerships.

[waterboy]

I dealt with something like this a while back. To use your example, I simply told them we would be transporting "dirty" plants back and forth in their nice sedans and then got approved to buy a used truck. The maintenance issue is really a red herring.

[AJ_Katz]

The maintenance issue is really a red herring.

Yes, I am gathering as much.  The policies they've enacted from the top down really make this a no win scenario for us....  but likely that's intentional since it serve's their institutional goal to reduce staff and fleet. 

We told them they could get us an electric vehicle if they really wanted to support that goal...  crickets.

[AJ_Katz]

Not really an answer to your question... but my private university has several "company cars."  They are all leased and replaced about every three years.  As it happens, one of the members of our board of trustees owns an umbrella company with several automobile franchises.  Surprise!  All our vehicles come from one of these dealerships.

I mean... that's not a bad idea.  I did mention in a recent correspondence that perhaps our department needs to ask for vehicle donations. 

[apl68]

We told them they could get us an electric vehicle if they really wanted to support that goal...  crickets.

It's not hard to see their reasoning.  You mentioned in the first post that it was your "greenhouse van."  How can it be a greenhouse van if it doesn't produce greenhouse gases?