In August of 2021, the Board of Directors approved the purchase of an 11 passenger Electric Vehicle Shuttle to transport visitors from the new parking structure and throughout the downtown area.  The City received the vehicle in November of 2021 and will be initiating the shuttle service in the coming weeks.

Several city departments collaborated their efforts to plan how the shuttle service would run.  During meetings it was realized that there was a need to add an additional shuttle to allow for extended service to the public and to work at max capacity during special events and the hours that the City sees the most foot traffic.

With this information the City Manager gave instructions to move forward with exploring the possibility of purchasing a second vehicle.

Through this search it was found that due to Covid-19 there are worldwide supply chain issues and significant delays in the availability of resources.  

Although this vehicle can be purchased from other vendors, the manufacturing time is significantly longer than normal, with some being several months.  This is further explicated by the fact that there is a state contract available for piggybacking.  However, the price is approximately $8,000 higher and it will take 200 days (over 6 months) to receive the vehicle from this company.

Bintelli Vehicles of Charleston, SC was found to have one vehicle left, on their property, of the exact model, that was being researched.  The delivery time for this vehicle would be 60 - 75 days from date of first deposit received from the City.

The purchase through this vendor was found to be less expensive than other vendor pricing and much less time for delivery.  This vendor is not under a state contract and will start production when 30% deposit is received from the city.