Electric service vehicles save money, eliminate CO2 emissions
Starting in September 2008, Jim Alty, associate vice president for Facilities & Campus Services, began phasing out old service trucks from the facilities service fleet and replacing them with entirely electric vehicles from Miles Electric Vehicles.
To date, seven MILES ZX40ST trucks supplement the Facilities squad and Alty plans to purchase five more before the end of the 2009-2010 academic year. All of the service vehicles will be replaced by electric trucks in the next seven years.
Director of Sustainability, Dedee Delongpre Johnston explains the replacement process as “similar to the Cash-for-Clunkers program. Vehicles will be replaced based on age, serviceability and fuel efficiency.”
These vehicles greatly reduce the university’s carbon footprint because they run solely on battery power, they produce no CO2 as the old, gas-powered vehicles did. Each vehicle is powered by a battery that takes 4-6 hours to charge and is expected to last for 25,000 miles according to the Miles Electric Web site.
In addition to eliminating CO2 emissions from service vehicles, the trucks are designed to save the university money over their lifetime. The estimated total annual energy cost of running a MILES ZX40ST truck for one year is $161. The total cost of a comparative truck running on gasoline is $2045. That’s an average savings of $13,188 per year for the seven vehicles currently in the fleet.
The university was also attracted to the compact size of the vehicles. The small white trucks do not require a full-size parking space which means that they can access any part of campus without worrying about the already tight parking situation.