Federal Express Electrifies Its U.S. Fleet of Delivery Trucks With Addition of 4 BEVs
By Scott Doggett March 29, 2010
By Danny King, Contributor
FedEx and United Parcel Service appear to be playing a game of "can you top this" when it comes to alternative-fuel vehicles. Which isn't a bad thing.
FedEx will start operating four battery-electric powered trucks in the Los Angeles area in June, marking the first-ever U.S.-operated EVs to join the delivery company's more than 1,800 alternative-fuel vehicles and following up competitor UPS's efforts to cut fuel use through more hybrid-electric trucks and more streamlined delivery processes.
Indiana-based Navistar, which built 10 EVs that FedEx uses in London and is building five more for Paris, built two of the new U.S. EVs, which are being unveiled today in Chicago, while another manufacturer FedEx didn't identify will build the other two, FedEx said in a statement today.
While FedEx didn't specify the EV's single-charge range, the company said the vehicles will be able to complete an eight-hour shift on a single charge.
"Electric trucks are still in their infancy, but we think they have a bright future in the mix of alternative energy vehicles," Mitch Jackson, vice president of environmental affairs and sustainability for FedEx Corp., said in the statement.
"Down the road, we see the possibility of charging electric-vehicle fleets with low- or zero-emission electricity generated on site by such innovations as solar electric arrays, like those at FedEx locations in California, New Jersey and Germany, or the Bloom Energy Server, another new technology we're helping to pioneer through evaluating it at our solar-powered hub in Oakland," he said.
Hybrid-electric and all-electric engines have been gradually making their way into U.S. delivery trucks as businesses look to cut fuel costs and boost their environmental profile.
Last week, UPS started offering a pickup option for smaller businesses with more intermittent service needs that lets them eliminate unnecessary pickup attempts and cut UPS's annual U.S. fuel use by almost 800,000 gallons a year.
Last year, UPS boosted its hybrid-electric truck inventory fivefold to 250 after a study revealed that such trucks get about 30 percent better mileage than UPS's standard diesel trucks.
FedEx, which boosted revenue for its most recently completed quarter by 7 percent from a year earlier to $8.7 billion, is looking for its growing fleet of hybrids and EVs to help it reach its goal of boosting fuel efficiency by 20 percent by the end of the decade.
The company, which says it operates the largest hybrid fleet in the transportation industry, added today that it acquired 10 more hybrid-electric vehicles for its California operations this year.
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