Transforming Gas Guzzling Fleets: The Time is Now

Editor’s Note: This is a guest contribution by the Founder and President of Rapid Electric Vehicles (REV).

This past week I have spent considerable time traveling throughout California, Oregon and Washington discussing the transformation of fleet vehicles to electric. My company, Vancouver-based REV (Rapid Electric Vehicles), has created a fully integrated solution to transform existing fleet vehicles including the Ford Escape into a 100 percent electric vehicle with long-range AC drive systems, integrated data management, charging stations, fleet charging management and Vehicle 2 Grid.

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I met with municipalities, city fleet managers, energy companies and government officials about the immediate need to transform gas-guzzling fleets into green driving machines. There is much talk about the preverbal chicken and egg problem—what will come first the EV’s or infrastructure. Indeed, according to Felix Kramer at CalCars.org, ‘new plug-in vehicles won’t arrive quickly enough to achieve the vital goal of near-term (next 10-15 years) reduction in petroleum use to gain energy security and greenhouse gas benefits.’ The fact is EV fleets can be a reality today through innovative measures. The City of Inglewood, California is leading by example by committing to transform existing fleet vehicles to 100 electric. Other California cities are doing the same and encouraging their peers to go green and save green.

Benefits to transforming gas guzzlers include:

• Compliance to clean air mandates through the elimination of emissions
• Savings in fuel and maintenance costs and increase fleet-service life (a fleet could replace $200 of monthly fuel expenses per vehicle with a $20 increase in their electric bill per vehicle).
• Taxpayer dollars saving and decreasing emissions that affect air quality
• Significantly reduced operating costs
• Simplification of how fleet managers track and calculate emission reductions
• Reusing existing fleet vehicles that saves over 20 tons from manufacturing

CalCars.org is encouraging organizations to “fix” a large fraction of the existing 250 million U.S. vehicles and 900 million globally to run partly or fully on electricity. This will enable millions of cleaner, more efficient vehicles that cost less money to operate, and create thousands of jobs that will provide new revenue streams to automakers from vehicles they have already sold. For the past year CalCars.org has been working to develop a campaign to promote promising designs about conversions and spread the word about US tax credits. If you would like to learn more, visit Calcars.org. You can also sign up for 1 Block Off the Grid’s plug-in hybrid project).

About REV:

Rapid Electric Vehicles (REV) is a leader in electric vehicle solutions for fleets, delivering a fully integrated solution for transforming and electrifying fleets. The complete solution provides everything fleets need to transform their existing passenger vehicles into 100 percent electric vehicles including: fast-install AC drive technology, integrated data management, charging stations, fleet charging management and V2G. The REV product eliminates vehicle emissions with a systems-integrated approach designed specifically for fleet operations while saving fuel and maintenance costs and increasing fleet-service life. For more information on REV visit http://www.rapidelectricvehicles.com. Follow REV on Twitter.

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