Skip to footer

Electric municipal fleets? Indianapolis thinks so.

The City of Indianapolis announced a goal to convert essentially its entire municipal fleet to hybrids or plug-ins by 2025, Voelcker writes.

|
Rick Bowmer/AP/File
A Nissan Leaf charges at a electric vehicle charging station in Portland, Ore., in this August 2011 file photo. Some of electric cars' biggest gains in reducing emissions and running costs are likely to come from vehicle fleets, Voelcker writes.
  • By John Voelcker Guest blogger

There's a lot of discussion about hybrids and plug-in electric cars being sold to private buyers.

But some of the biggest gains in reducing emissions and running costs are likely to come from vehicle fleets.

While individual car owners may suddenly have to take a car 100 miles instead of their usual 25, that's far rarer for municipal fleets.

And the cost savings from greener, more fuel-efficient vehicles can be properly evaluated by savvy fleet managers.

It's in this light that the city of Indianapolis announced a goal to convert essentially its entire municipal fleet--excluding police and fire vehicles--to hybrids or plug-ins by 2025. 

On Tuesday, Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard signed an executive order mandating the transition.

"As a retired Marine with time served in the Saudi Arabian oil fields during the First Gulf War," the city's website notes, "Mayor Ballard is gravely concerned that our national dependence on oil compromises our national security."

The Indianapolis fleet includes roughly 500 cars (excluding the police force), each of which is kept for about 10 years.

While electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles cost more than gasoline cars, the city projects that over that 10-year life, it will save $10,000 per vehicle in operating costs.

The city is working with a consultant to develop a transition program for its heavy equipment.

While there are now several options for plug-in hybrid work trucks, utility vehicles, and even some construction equipment, the city's fleet also includes vehicles like snowplows, which will require more effort.

As for police vehicles, the city is studying those too, working with its force to determine whether any current or future plug-in hybrids or electric cars would meet officers' various needs.

The average police vehicle now, the city said, gets 10 mpg.

Indianapolis is far from the only region or municipality looking to green its fleet.

Rhode Island said this week that for the first time, it is including all-electric cars in its vehicle purchases.

It is targeting an initial 20 percent of vehicles to be more fuel-efficient or to run on alternative fuels, including electricity.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Electric municipal fleets? Indianapolis thinks so.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2012/1214/Electric-municipal-fleets-Indianapolis-thinks-so
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe