After comparing the advantages of natural gas-powered vehicles versus ones that run on electricity, General Motors chose natural gas for its new line of fleet vans, according to The New York Times. The disadvantages of electric vehicles were clear to Mike McGarry, GM’s marketing manager for alternative fuels in fleet and commercial operations:

“You’d have a significant number of batteries, so you’d be carrying a lot of weight around, which would cut down on capacity,” McGarry said. “A lot of these companies have looked at those options. They know someday there will be electric vans that will be commercially viable. But this is a next step, and one of multiple pathways.”

According to the Times, GM’s new Savana van line is reviving interest in natural gas vehicles at a time when many automakers are looking for alternatives to gasoline. Fleet vans are an especially good way to try new technology:

“It’s much easier and advantageous for a company to get vehicles out there at once through the fleets rather than through the consumer. The Savana van is ubiquitous as a service vehicle, same with these Transit Connects. There’s a specific audience,” said Kim Hill, director of the Sustainable Transportation and Communities group for the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Fleet use of natural gas-powered vans could also make a substantial environmental impact. So says the Center for Automotive Research, which did a study for AT&T after the company announced plans to convert 15,000 fleet vehicles to green technology. Researchers found that once the company replaced those vehicles with either hybrid or CNG vans, there would be savings of 31,533 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, roughly the equivalent of taking 5,776 cars off the road. If half the country’s corporate fleets adopt the same strategy, it would be the same as cutting 1.2 million vehicles from the road.

“This is a major step forward for natural gas fleets all over the country,” said America’s Natural Gas Alliance president and CEO Regina Hopper in a press release. Hopper added that “[t]his first of a kind commercial scale offering is a strong step in expanding the use of vehicles that rely on clean fuels produced right here in America.”

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