By Lilia Guan

 

As United States Government doubles the number of clean fleets its uses within its agencies, President Obama has announced private organisations are also jumping on the green fleet bandwagon.
 
The President said it has gone into a ‘Clean Fleets Partnership’, with large US-based private companies like; UPS; FedEx; AT&T; Verizon; and PepsiCo.

 

According to the President this will help boost the market for clean fuels by switching their fleets over to electric and alternative vehicles.
 
“We secured an agreement from all the major auto companies to raise the fuel efficiency of their cars and trucks,” he said. 

 

“So if you buy a new car, the better gas mileage is going to save you about US$3,000 and altogether, this will save us about 1.8 billion barrels of oil as a country.”
 
According to Mr Obama the government has already jumpstarted this market, by doubling the number of clean energy vehicles that it has in its agencies’ fleets. 

 

“In the next few years, we’re going to switch the entire fleet over,” he said. 

 

 While the US planned to drive its clean fleet initiative, CSIRO's chief advisor for automotive technologies and strategy, David Lamb said Australia

should be “ashamed” about being so behind the rest of the world in the use of clean energy.

 

“Australia is too busy debating whether or not climate change is real,” he said.

 

“Initiatives like President Obama’s show how far behind Australia are. Why isn’t Prime Minister Gillard meeting with the Australian equivalent of UPS about similar partnerships?”

 

According to Mr Lamb Australia will one day be faced with the reality of who should get oil for their cars?

 

“The government will have to decide whether or not it’s more important for public sector vehicles, such as ambulances, police vehicles to get the gas or will it be the planes that fly doctors around,” he said.

 

“Europe has been using solar power for over a decade and they have 20 percent less sunlight than Australia.”

 

However Bishop Fleet Optimisation managing director, Derrick Bishop said public good does come at a cost. 

 

“The Government fleets hold about 80000-100000 vehicles so converting the vehicles to cleaner alternatives will be an expensive task,” he said. 

 

“It is not a one-off cost either and these vehicles will likely be at a higher purchase price for some time so the replacement costs each cycle will be higher than normal until the unit cost diminishes.”

 

According to Mr Bishop expensive hybrid car will depreciate more due to their higher purchase price. 

 

“It is also unknown territory when the expensive vehicle Lithium batteries reach their end of life,” he said. 

 

“Electric and hybrid vehicles will only become financially attractive to roll out across a fleet when the purchase costs become lower to reduce the depreciation and capital/interest charge impact.”

 

He believed agencies should look at optimising fleet vehicle numbers before ramping up electric/hybrid vehicles. 
 

“The last thing you will want is to replace your entire fleet only to find you have purchased too many,” he said. 
 

“Green vehicles create higher depreciation expense on the books so you need to think about that impact.”
 

According to Mr Bishop lower or zero vehicles emissions are possibly better objectives if vehicles need power from coal burning power stations to make electric vehicles work.
 

“The end game is to make the air cleaner with no atmospheric damage and generate energy locally to reduce imports and prevent price spikes,” he said.