GE, Coca-Cola among latest firms to joint Clean Fleet effort

Six new corporate partners have come on board a US government initiative aimed at increasing the use of electric vehicles, alternative fuels and other efficiency strategies in commercial fleets.

The newest members of the National Clean Fleets Partnership include Coca-Cola, Enterprise Holdings, General Electric, OSRAM SYLVANIA, Ryder and Staples. Together, the companies operate nearly one million fleet vehicles across the US.

The Clean Fleets Partnership is part of the Obama Administration’s goal to cut US oil imports by one-third by 2025. Under the partnership, each company will work with the US Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a comprehensive strategy to reduce petroleum and diesel use in their fleets. The DOE will also help connect partners with clean fuel providers and equipment manufacturers where their fleets operate.

Among the efficiency strategies already under way at the new partner companies:

• Coca-Cola, which has the largest hybrid delivery fleet in North America, has deployed hybrid delivery trucks and trained drivers in eco-driving techniques.  The company also expects to deploy additional hydraulic hybrid vehicles this year.
• Enterprise Holdings — which includes Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Alamo Car Rent A Car, National Car Rental, and WeCar — currently offers Chevrolet Volts and Nissan Leafs to consumers for rentals and expects to further expand its fleet.
• GE has committed to convert half of its global vehicle fleet and will partner with fleet customers to deploy a total of 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015.
• Ryder recently celebrated the opening of its first natural gas vehicle maintenance facility, which will deploy hundreds of heavy-duty liquefied natural gas (LNG) trucks, include two LNG fueling stations and two additional maintenance facilities.  This project is expected to save 1.5 million gallons of diesel fuel per year.
• Staples has increased the fuel economy of its fleet by more than 20 percent since 2007 through fuel-saving steps such as automatically limiting truck idling to no more than three minutes and limiting the top speed of its vehicles to 60 miles an hour. The company is also in the process of testing all-electric delivery trucks in Ohio and California.
• OSRAM SYLVANIA aims to replace 10 to 12 percent of its fleet annually with more energy-efficient vehicles. This year, it expects to replace more than one-fifth of its utility trucks with more efficient ones that reduce the need for idling.

Charter members of the National Clean Fleets Partnership include AT&T, FedEx, PepsiCo/Frito-Lay, UPS, and Verizon.  The partnership is part of the DOE Vehicle Technology Program’s Clean Cities initiative.