The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) has done a study of the potential effects of the announcement last spring by AT&T that the corporation was embarking on a 10-year program to buy or convert 15,000 of its vehicles to cleaner technology.
According to the study,
Fleet vehicles account for nearly one of every five new vehicle purchases in the United States each year.
Unlike personal vehicles,
Fleets tend to turn over quickly, so there is an opportunity to move a substantial number of cleaner technology cars and trucks onto the road in a small number of years.
AT&T has been a leader in the move to replace its fleet – which is one of the largest domestic fleets in America – with vehicles running on alternative fuels. The study points out that:
If half of U.S. corporate fleets embraced alternative fuels, the potential annual reduction of carbon fuels could be the same as removing 1.2 million gasoline-powered vehicles from U.S. roads.
Moreover, the practical effect of the AT&T program will be “the equivalent of removing more than 38,000 vehicles from the road for a year.”
In addition to the environmental benefits, the study concludes that if half the corporate fleets followed AT&T’s lead:
The number of jobs created or preserved to produce the alternative vehicles could total 20,000.
To read the entire study, click HERE.
— The Pickens Team