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March 1, 2017 -- The City Council on Tuesday approved the purchase of 14 electric sedans to replace some of the vehicles in the City's aging fleet.

Under the one-year contract, the City will pay Nissan of Stockton $403,950 for the purchase and delivery of the Nissan Leaf Electric Vehicles, with an additional one-year renewal option to purchase up to four additional vehicles over a two-year period for a total amount not to exceed $519,365.

The contract was approved as part of Tuesday's City Council consent calendar.

One of the vehicles will be used by the code enforcement division. The rest are replacements for cars that have aged, some of them so old that the cost of maintaining them exceeds their original cost, staff said.

All of the vehicles to be retired have reached their “cost-effective useful life span of 14 years” – and some are years beyond, a report from the Public Works Department said.

One vehicle, bought in 2001 for $22,215 has now cost $22,159 to maintain, the report said. Another vehicle on the replacement list was purchased in 2002 for $21,983 and has required a total of $23,319 to maintain.

In all, the vehicles to be replaced (including those leased) were purchased for a total of $433,168 and have cost a total of $177,412 for upkeep.

The report to the council said the City also considered a bid from Frontier Toyota of $586,491 for Prius Prime sedans, but that Nissan of Stockton offered a lower price, which includes an instant rebate/governmental agency discount of $9,000 per vehicle applied post tax.

Santa Monica has been replacing older vehicles in its City fleet as part of ambitious plans to become, in the next few decades, “carbon neutral,” which means the city would capture as much carbon emissions as emitted annually.

This batch of vehicles includes purchases between 1999 and 2003, although most date from 2002.

They will be split among the divisions of Fleet Management, Engineering, Facilities Maintenance, Code Enforcement, the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, Water Resources and Wastewater.