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The Government Services Administration (GSA) -- the agency that buys vehicles for federal agencies to lease -- has announced that the new cars purchased so far in 2011 use 21 percent less fuel than the cars they replaced. The average MPG for the new vehicles has gone from 19.1 last year to 23.4 this year.
President Obama signed an executive order in 2009 that mandated a 30 percent decrease in fuel consumption by the U.S. government's fleet by 2020 and it looks like the administration is well on its way to meeting that goal -- fuel use across the entire fleet has dropped 22.5 percent compared to 2005, which is the baseline year..
So far this year, the GSA has replaced 35,000 vehicles with more efficient models, with 22,000 of those being advanced technology vehicles (EVs, hybrids, fuel cell vehicles and E85 vehicles). By 2015, all vehicles purchased for the federal fleet will have to be advanced technology vehicles. The GSA typically purchases about 60,000 vehicles a year.
An average of 23.4 MPG seems low when there are several vehicles out that can get 40 MPG and greater, but this huge fleet includes military and delivery vehicles which are typically less efficient and that increase will make a big impact. The new cars will save 2.4 million gallons of fuel and $9 million taxpayer dollars annualy.
This is a step that deserves some cheering. After all, the U.S. government is the world's largest consumer of oil and the nation's greatest energy user. The more we can reduce those numbers, the better.
via Detroit News and Autoblog Green
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written by Wait a Minute, May 10, 2011
Also, which specific vehicles have they been replacing with the advanced technology vehicles so far? Seems to me the biggest fuel savings will be had by purchasing hydraulic hybrid delivery trucks such as those UPS has been testing. Also, those little mail carrier trucks that run everywhere, starting and stopping at every single residence - imagine how much gas it would save by creating an electric hybrid/natural gas engine propulsion system for those little guys to run on.
I'd like to see more hybrid buses too. I was biking downtown the other day and a bus went by, let me say I cannot believe the level of air pollution they emit. There should be incentives to encourage municipalities to adopt hybrid metro transit technologies faster.
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Gimme a break.