by Brianna Crandall — April 8, 2011—President Obama announced on April 1 the National Clean Fleets Partnership, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities program, at a UPS fleet facility in Landover, Maryland.
This public-private partnership will draw on the DOE’s expertise to help large companies reduce diesel and gasoline use in their fleets by incorporating electric vehicles, alternative fuels and fuel-saving measures into their operations, according to news from the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
Charter members of this partnership include AT&T, FedEx Corporation, PepsiCo, UPS, and Verizon Communications. These companies represent five of the nation’s 10 largest fleets and collectively operate over 275,000 vehicles. They are committing to deploy more than 20,000 advanced technology vehicles that are expected to save more than 7 million gallons of fuel per year, says the EERE.
The partnership is focused on major fleets because these work vehicles can use much more petroleum than the typical driver, explains the EERE. While an average American drives about 12,000 miles a year, a fleet vehicle, like a delivery truck, may travel more than twice as far, and the impact of potential petroleum and emissions reductions is multiplied across a fleet of thousands.
