What Happened?
Indianapolis announced it will deploy the largest municipal fleet of electric cars in the country by early 2016. The energy efficient fleet will not only reduce energy consumption but save taxpayers millions.
Goal
Indianapolis’s partnership with Vision Fleet will enable the city to upgrade 425 non-police pursuit sedans to plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles and cut its total municipal fleet by 100 vehicles. Through the partnership, Vision Fleet will buy the cars and cover all of the maintenance costs to power the vehicles. Indianapolis will pay Vision Fleet $32 million over a seven-year contract to lease the cars, saving $8.7 million.
To launch the new energy efficient fleet, Vision Fleet developed a financing structure specific for the city of Indianapolis – the Clean Mile Solution - that bundles purchasing, fueling and maintenance costs for the electric vehicles into a guaranteed lower rate than what those expenses would total for traditional gasoline sedans. The private provider will also use offer continual benefits to the city through innovations specifically designed for alternatively fueled vehicles to keep costs low.
Based on past numbers, gasoline-powered sedans typically cost taxpayers about $9,000 annually per vehicle for purchase, fuel, maintenance and insurance. The electric vehicles, on the other hand, are estimated to cost $7,400 annually over a 10-year period which generates $1,600 per year per vehicle in taxpayer savings.
Furthermore, the plug-in hybrid vehicles have already saved an average of 53 gallons of gasoline per month, while the 425 electric vehicles to be deployed are projected to save at least 560 gallons annually. This will add up to 2.2 million gallons of gasoline saved over the next 10 years.
Smart Cars
Another way municipalities are cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions and reducing overall costs is by investing in energy-efficient vehicle practices in their fleets. In Illinois, for example, Zipcar’s car-sharing service has signed contracts with the city of Chicago, the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, the Chicago Park District, the Chicago Transit Authority and several nearby suburbs Crain’s Chicago Business reported.
Under the contract, state employees can rent Zipcars at $6 per hour, with an additional charge of $0.25 per mile after 180 miles driven. Because Zipcar offers fuel-efficient vehicles, the agencies can deploy vehicles with less emissions without purchasing and maintaining the cars in-house.
Similarly, Washington, D.C., has adopted the FastFleet system that is expected to save the city $6 million over a five-year period. During the first four months of the fleet management pilot program, D.C. reported more than $300,000 in savings alone.
The FastFleet system is a Zipcar technology that help municipalities manage their fleets and ensure high ROI. The turnkey fleet management model helps cities:
- Improve service levels
- Right-size municipal fleets
- Analyze drive rand vehicle history
- Fleet visibility and control
- Migrate to energy-efficiency hybrid and electric vehicles at appropriate times
Municipalities can use data analytics and predictive modeling to know how efficient their fleets are running and when updates or improvements should be made.
Future of Cars
Gov1 has reported on several initiatives to boost electric car use as well as studies arguing to do away with personal vehicles all together.