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How Green is Your Fleet?
1 Dec, 2008 By: Jim Harmon Pest Management ProfessionalSearch the Internet for fuel conservation methods and gadgets, and you will get thousands of hits. Search for greening your fleet operations, and you will get many fewer hits but the ones you do will deal with reducing fuel costs. Let's take a look at some of these concepts and how you as a pest management professional (PMP) can reduce your carbon footprint on the environment through fleet management.
 Lifecycle Cost Analysis |
We all want to save the environment, but getting a hybrid car for the business owner while the rest of the employees drive 10-year old mini pickup trucks does not really fit the bill. Going green means a change in attitude across the board, including fleet management.
Lifecycle Cost Analysis
Another idea for vehicle acquisition is the use of a lifecycle cost analysis (LCA) of the current replacement vehicle versus a hybrid vehicle. The hybrid vehicle will be viewed by the public as more environmentally-friendly, and you do get a nice tax credit towards the purchase price of the vehicle.
Unfortunately, since these vehicles are in high demand currently, availability is limited. Those vehicles out there typically have the high-end options already installed (you may not need heated powered seats in a sales car), and dealers will not give you the kind of pricing deals you're used to because of demand in the market.
A simple LCA shows that a hybrid sedan may cost more initially, but it makes up for it in long-term value and low cost of operations. This spreadsheet analysis was done using a fuel cost value of $4.50 per gallon, expected mileage per month of 1,150 miles and a 60-month life cycle. Of course these numbers will vary, but the higher the fuel cost, the more miles per month, the better the hybrid looks on paper.
Even if fuel costs go down significantly, it would have to reach $1.75 per gallon before the hybrid and the gas engine are equal on the LCA analysis. Also remember that the warantee on the battery pack is only 96 months at best or 100,000 miles.
The vehicle must be cycled out of service well before that time to avoid the repair expense and to also have some miles left on it before the service is required for better resale value. Note that this spreadsheet format can be used for any type of vehicle selection, and I would heartily recommend it as a tool for your decision making in the future.
So does this mean you should go out and purchase all hybrids for your fleet? Maybe not yet.
Technology will be changing rapidly in the next few years, and improvements in battery technology as well as fuel cells and other engines may make current hybrids obsolete. The LCA does not allow for such major changes in value. You still have to input them into the model. It is only a decision making tool.
In 2009, we will also see the first availability of a hybrid full-sized truck from GM. While getting 20 mpg from a work truck is good, it's particularly good since it's a hybrid from a full-sized truck. It gets us closer to our goal of reducing our carbon footprint on the environment.
Maximum Mileage
Fuel as a driving force in the fleet management industry is no new concept. Twenty five years ago, the United States also experienced a fuel crisis. We responded by using smaller vehicles and smaller engines. Gone were the V8 engines, and in were the four-cylinder mini engines.
More modern ideas have surfaced through research and real-world data that show switching to a four-cylinder engine for your work trucks may not be the best strategy for fuel economy. A hybrid car or four-cylinder car carries only passengers (sales and management personnel), not rigs and materials. The smaller engines are fine for this application.
For a service vehicle, the use of a four-cylinder, low-horsepower engine that gets 24 miles per gallon (mpg) may tax the engine more through normal use than switching to a V6 engine that gets 20 mpg, but has the proper amount of horsepower and torque for that truck application.
When you acquire a new vehicle for your fleet, specify what the vehicle will be doing and what the real needs of the vehicle will be. Using an engine too small for the job will cause poor fuel mileage (always running in high to mid range RPMs), increased maintenance costs and do nothing to reduce the emissions of your company. The differential between the four- and six-cylinder engines of 4 mpg is lost due to higher maintenance costs, and the fuel mileage ends up almost equal because of the smaller engine works harder.
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