Honolulu Officials Praise Ansaldo Rail Deal as Washington Metro Dumps the Cash Strapped Italian Company for Kawasaki

Grabauskas and the HART Board will say anything to excuse the inexcusable decision to buy troubled rail cars from a troubled rail car company in a troubled country on the other side of the planet, Prevedouros said.

Sierra Club Used Wrong Population Projections in Support of Honolulu’s Rail

If one wants to keep things simple, then it could be said that the base of Sierra Club's support for rail is simply a case of garbage in, garbage out.  In other words, garbage data were used to come to a garbage conclusion.  However, I believe that data were sufficiently twisted to support the underlying car-hating philosophy of "environmentalists."

In this case, the bias is clear because supporting rail (to kill auto) causes huge damage to prime agricultural land. The Sierra Club simply cannot have it both ways.

Explanations are provided in my article in the Hawaii Reporter.

100 Thousand!

The FIXOAHU blog has reached 100,000 all time visits today. That's way more than the readers of my books and scientific articles.

Mahalo, Thank You, Efharisto for reading my opinions from time to time.

Panel Discussion on Rail at University of Hawaii-Manoa

• Rail opponents UH Professors Randall Roth (Law) and Panos Prevedouros (Engineering)
• Rail proponents Dan Grabauskas, CEO of HART and Ivan Lui-Kwan, HART Board Member

Here's an independent "post-debate" assessment:

Dr. Prevedouros,

Thank you immensely for your participation in the April 9 rail debate at UH-Manoa.  There is no doubt that you and Professor Roth prevailed.  You both showed the audience and Daniel Grabauskas and Ivan Lui-Kwan that the case against rail is very powerful.

It would be ideal if the truth about rail could continue to be made known to the public, many of whom voted to approve steel wheels on steel rail without really understanding the downsides of rail.  The more people learn the whole truth about rail, the more ready they could become to rise up and demand that the persons responsible for foisting rail on the public be held accountable when it becomes apparent that the billions spent on this scheme have irretrievably gone into a gigantic "black hole."  I would hate to see the culprits simply ride off into the sunset.

Again, many thanks for your invaluable efforts to expose the monumental steel wheels blunder.

K. Hirata

Big Rooftop Solar Panels Make Sense in Hawaii - Without Any Subsidies!

Question: Does $150,000 installed cost for approximately 45 KW make sense?

Answer: Yes, but only in Honolulu.

Explanation: There’s a lot involved, so off to Hawaii Reporter for the full article.

Want a Fine Electric Car? Not in Hawaii.

The Tesla S is a fine EV, comparable to a BMW 5 series or a Mercedes S class.  Tesla argues that their model S can also be cheaper than its competitors. It has developed a calculator to prove it, based on location, incentives, fuel and electricity prices, and owner annual mileage.

I looked into the Tesla S and made some calculations. A couple of months ago I mentioned on the Rick Hamada Program on KHVH that my estimates indicated that in Hawaii if I was choosing between a $50,000 Tesla S and a $50,000 BMW 528i,  I should buy the BMW. (Cars were optioned so that with EV incentives they came with approximately the same "out the door" cost.)

This is the outcome of outrageous electricity prices which, thanks to renewable energy mandates and meddling politicians who pick winners (for their own self-interests,) are continuously escalating,

As you can see below, the true cost to own a base Tesla S in Hawaii is 17% more than California and 34% more than Colorado (excluding applicable taxes, insurance and registration differences, etc.)