International employees;

• Southern California Edison providing service and maintenance for Toyota EVs; and,  a utility agreement to lease 80 RAV4-EVs for fleet use over the next years.

The announcement was made during events at the International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exposition.

"We are delighted to offer Edison employees the opportunity to be among the first to drive a quality Toyota EV," said Wendy James, Southern California Edison's manager of electric transportation.  "We are hopeful that our employees' positive experiences will encourage Toyota to make the RAV4-EV available to other consumers in the retail market."

"Toyota is proud of the relationship we have built with the member companies of Edison International," said Al Cabito, TMS vice president of sales administration.  "With its long-life batteries and advanced packaging, we believe Toyota EV are perfect vehicle for our commercial fleet partners, and with the assistance of Edison employees we hope to learn what it takes to be successful in the retail EV market."

Southern California Edison will also provide normal maintenance, warranty and other repairs as necessary to the utility's fleet.  Edison engineers, technicians and battery specialists will undergo Toyota service training.

Another industry first was Southern California Edison's recent agreement with Toyota to lease 80 RAV4-EVs.  Under the arrangement Toyota will deliver EVs to Edison. This major delivery represents about half of the number of zero-emission vehicles that Edison has purchased.

"Toyota offers a quality product in terms of fleet operations and driver missions," said Jim Scheidler, an EV engineer with Southern California Edison. "With more than 10 years of EV fleet maintenance experience, our Transportation Services Department plans to integrate these vehicles into the Edison fleet for 'real world' use by meter readers, service managers, field representatives, service planners, mail handlers, security patrols and carpools."

The Toyota RAV4-EV is Toyota's first production EV and is based on the popular and versatile RAV4 sport utility vehicle platform.  Powered by advanced nickel-metal hydride batteries, the RAV4-EV can travel up to 125 miles on a single charge at speeds up to 78 mph.  With four doors and seating for five, the vehicle offers true utility for a variety of fleet applications. The RAV4-EV is available to fleet buyers in selected states nationwide.

"We are hopeful that our alliance with Toyota will spur continued development of our other utility partnerships, as well," said James.  "As pioneers in the EV field, we at Edison view our relationship with Toyota as one that builds upon an already strong foundation:  We have a sizable and growing utility fleet, we're a premier proving ground for all the major automakers' prototype EVs, and we maintain third-party EV service agreements with other manufacturers, including General Motors."

Edison has logged over 1 million miles on its fleet of EVs, one of the largest in the country. The state-of-the-art EV fleet also includes vehicles from Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda and Nissan.