St. Paul's new electric fire truck was on display downtown during Mayor Melvin Carter's 2025 budget address on Aug. 13, 2024. Photo by Russ Stark/St. Paul Chief Resilience Officer.
Minnesota’s first electric fire truck is expected to be ready for its first run in St. Paul next month, a shining $1.8 million rig that city leaders herald as a symbol of their efforts to protect the environment and workers’ health.
“We’re excited to be the first in the state to invest in this state-of-the-art fire truck,” Mayor Melvin Carter said when announcing the purchase in March 2023 . “It brings us all the critical green energy benefits of an electric vehicle while meeting the high safety and efficiency standards we have for all our fire equipment.”
When Carter and Fire Chief Butch Inks announced the purchase, the city planned to apply for federal funding to cover the entire cost of the truck.
The cost of the electric fire truck was roughly twice that of a traditional diesel truck — not including the $48,000 for an additional charging station — although a sales agent for manufacturer Rosenbauer says rising costs for diesel trucks have narrowed the gap slightly with electric rigs.
Federal funding was a key selling point for the expensive Rosenbauer RTX as elected officials and residents confront a hollowed-out commercial tax base that’s straining the city’s budget and driving up property taxes for homeowners and renters.
The city appealed to U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith to request funding for the truck through Congressionally Directed Spending, often called earmarks, around March or April 2023, according to Carter’s press secretary Jennifer Lor.
But fire trucks — electric or otherwise — haven’t been eligible for the type of funding they applied for.
The economic development initiative funding the city sought is designated for projects that benefit low-income people , prevent or eliminate blight or address an urgent need from natural disasters.
The city’s application said an electric fire truck would benefit residents of St. Paul and is in alignment with the city’s Climate Action & Resiliency Plan, but did not explain how it would meet the federal government’s required objectives.
What’s more, federal rules prohibit organizations from being reimbursed for expenses they incurred before funding was authorized by Congress. The city moved forward with purchasing the vehicle before the federal appropriations bill was finalized, meaning they jeopardized any chance of getting funding even if the truck had been eligible.
St. Paul paid a $50,000 deposit on the truck in March 2023, and the City Council approved amending the fire department budget to pay for the full cost of the vehicle in December . The spending bill funding all the approved requests from across the country passed in March . Lor, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said that’s when the city found out the request wasn’t accepted.
Lor said the city does plan to apply for federal rebates to pay for the truck through the Inflation Reduction Act.
But the city would only be eligible to receive a rebate of up to $40,000 for the $1.8 million truck, according to Samah Shaiq, deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy. Shaiq said the city may be able to receive additional rebates for the truck’s charging station if it’s in an eligible area.
The cost of a fire truck is a fraction of the department’s annual budget of about $85 million. But it’s not the department’s only eyebrow-raising expense as the city faces rising taxes. As the Reformer previously reported, St. Paul fire chiefs receive their own unmarked Chevy Suburbans and Tahoes to drive home — mostly to the suburbs or exurbs — plus unlimited gas.
Lor shared a statement from Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher saying the investment “puts us one step closer to achieving carbon neutrality in city operations by 2030.”
The electric fire truck is expected to be cheaper to maintain than a diesel truck and the city project savings of $25,000 per year on fuel.
As cities look to reduce their carbon emissions from vehicles, fire trucks present a strong use case for electrification because they spend most of the time in a warm fire station hooked up to the charger in between going on short runs. And proponents also say the quieter electric motor that doesn’t spew diesel exhaust will improve firefighters’ health.
SPFD’s friendly relationship with Rosenbauer
St. Paul has had a close relationship with Rosenbauer in recent years as the city’s primary manufacturer of diesel trucks, built at the company’s plant in Wyoming, Minn.
Some rank-and-file firefighters groused that Rosenbauer has courted department leaders with free tickets to Minnesota Wild games.
The St. Paul Fire Department didn’t report any gifts from Rosenbauer in response to a public data request and Fire Department Public Information Officer Jamie Smith said fire department staff had never attended any Wild games or other events with any Rosenbauer representatives.
Rosenbauer dealer Steve Harris said in an interview that Rosenbauer doesn’t purchase Wild or Twins tickets, but said he has taken St. Paul Fire Department staff including Chief Butch Inks to Wild games “as a friend.”
“It’s not out of any business,” said Harris, whose company General Safety Fire Apparatus is exclusively a Rosenbauer authorized dealer. “I’ve got all kinds of friends that are firefighters.”
Harris declined to say who else from the department besides Inks he’s taken to Wild games. He added he’s probably taken St. Paul Fire Department staff to games less than five times over the course of eight years.
The truck St. Paul bought is the first RTX Harris sold, but since then the city of Roseville announced it would acquire one.
Trip to Austria included
In January, the fire department sent six staff members to Austria on a six-day trip to see the rig as it was being built.
Inks said it was essential for department officials to inspect such a significant purchase before it was shipped to St. Paul. Much of the truck’s design is custom-tailored to the department’s specifications, so they wanted to be sure to iron out any issues before the truck was finished.
“It’s a huge process,” Inks said. “It’s not some elaborate trip to Austria. It’s labor intensive … It’s an all-day deal for two or three days.”
That’s standard for every truck they purchase, Inks said, although for other Rosenbauer trucks they just had to drive to the Rosenbauer plant 30 miles north. Harris, the Rosenbauer sales rep, said St. Paul has paid less for diesel trucks than buyers farther away because the travel expenses are so low.
Rosenbauer only builds electric fire trucks in Austria, however.
Officials from two other fire departments that have purchased electric fire trucks from Rosenbauer — in Boulder, Colorado, and Rancho Cucamonga, California — said they also sent officials to Austria to inspect their rigs as they were being built and said it was customary for every truck they purchase.
The full cost of the trip — including airfare and lodging — was not disclosed in response to a pair of public data requests submitted by the Reformer in March seeking all gifts and contracts with Rosenbauer as well as all travel receipts for the department in the first two months of the year.
The department did produce receipts in June in response to the request totaling $545.61 for the Austria trip, which included airport parking, an international cell phone plan, two taxi rides and a dinner at Vienna’s Hard Rock Cafe.
Inks did not travel to Austria for the inspection. The department sent Fire Captain and Union President Mike Smith, Captain and Union 2nd Vice President Thad Albert, Assistant Chief Jeramiah Melquist, Assistant Chief Mike Gaede, Vehicle Mechanic Supervisor Perry Demarre and Assistant Chief Steve Sampson.
(In February, the department also spent about $2,500 to send Ink to Boston for three days to attend a graduation ceremony of a fire department member from a leadership school at Harvard and about $3,500 for two department staff to attend a cancer symposium in Miami).
Asked about the flights, airfare and any other costs on the six-day trip to Austria, Inks said those costs were covered by Rosenbauer.
All gifts to city officials must be formally accepted by the St. Paul City Council, but the trip never went before the council. Inks said that’s because the trip wasn’t a gift but built into the contract already approved by city leaders, although the purchase order agreement doesn’t mention travel expenses to inspect the truck. A spokesman for the department said they didn’t know what the value of the trip was.
Harris, the Rosenbauer sales representative, said the Austria trip was mentioned in an early proposal and offered to send a copy but never did.
Inks said it will be exciting when the department takes possession of the truck, which will put St. Paul at the vanguard of fire departments transitioning away from fossil fuels.
“We made the leap to do it, and we hope it triggers a lot of departments to do it,” Inks said.
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