Exclusive: Kansas City EVs Idle For Months

Kansas City proudly announced plans to prioritize the purchase of electric vehicles but the transition has proven more challenging than most locals realize and recent difficulties have been kept out of public view. 

First, let's look at the marching orders . . .

Not so long ago, in the Fall of 2021, City Manager Brian Platt announced that new municipal fleet purchases for the City of Kansas City, Missouri, must all be full battery electric vehicles where available.

Since that time there have been a few updates on the progress and last year a large non-emergency vehicle purchase for KCFD garnered even more praise.

However . . . 

Out of public view until now . . . A major setback in the KCMO EV transition continues confound workers and managers. 

The critical component of this story shared by BAD-ASS TKC READERS . . . 

RIGHT NOW PRICEY EVS PURCHASED FOR THE KANSAS CITY HEALTH DEPT. HAVE BEEN SITTING IDLE FOR AT LEAST THREE MONTHS!!!

The headline banner offered the first view and now here's a better look at the cars parked out by the Service Center on Municipal down by the river at a city owned lot . . . The photo was taken earlier this week . . .

Here's the sitch according to people that www.TonysKansasCity.com trusts . . .

- KCMO purchased 16 Ford Mustang Mach-E SUVs for the Health Department. 

- The entry level cost of a Ford Mustang Mach-E is $39,995  . . . A bit of rough math puts the total purchase at around $640K.

- Sadly, there's no charging stations yet at Health Dept. HQ and insiders estimate the cost of procuring a professional grade station would be at least $150K. 

And so . . .

Until there's some solution the cars will continue to remain idle as the Health Department waits for equipment that it desperately needs. 

As always, we rely on insiders for perspective and here's what they're saying . . . 

"This is ridiculous. It's hard to remember when planning from KCMO has been so horrible. Why purchase these cars if there's no plan for employees to charge them??? Why are we wasting money when there's no real strategy for incorporating EVs into our fleet. It really looks like they just wanted favorable news coverage without doing any work on logistics & operations. In the meantime, this incredible waste is just disheartening for everyone to see."

There's even more to this story but for now we wanted to share this KCMO EV update in hopes of sparking more critical questions about how 12th & Oak utilizes electric cars after press release headlines.

Developing . . .