Fleet

On Thursday, package delivery company United Parcel Service (UPS) released its annual Sustainability Report (PDF). The exhaustive 107-page report shows that significant progress has been made in UPS' efforts to use technology that minimizes miles driven and reduce total fuel consumption.

Corporate fleet managers rated volatile fuel prices as their top concern for 2011, according to a survey conducted by General Electric Capital Fleet Services. The survey of 105 fleet managers found that driver safety and overall cost savings do matter. However, both are considered to be less of a concern than unstable fuel prices.

The Electrification Coalition, formed in 2009, is a group of business leaders passionately advocating for the adoption of electric vehicles on a mass scale in order to avoid the pitfalls of our dependence on oil. On November 15, it released its Fleet Electrification Roadmap, a detailed report that examines the operation of commercial and government fleets and argues for them to ad

Two of the largest parcel delivery fleets in the U.S. have been competing neck and neck in a race to become the greenest in the land. Both Federal Express (FedEx) and United Parcel Service (UPS) have delved into alternative energy vehicles for daily delivery use.

They won't make you ski, skate or snowboard with any additional talent or zest, but the "official" Olympic-branded vehicles used during the 2010 Winter Games are going up for sale in Canada later this month. Each of the General Motors supplied cars and trucks spent time in Vancouver and Whistler shuttling athletes, officials, VIPs and dignitaries to and from the competitions and related events. Now, with the Winter Olympics written in the history books and the Paralympic Winter Games closing at

After gathering real-time transaction data from 8,900 automotive franchisees across the U.S., J.D. Power and Associates predicts new-vehicle retail sales will have declined for January 2010 compared to one year ago. January's new-vehicle sales are expected to come in at 500,900 units, which represents a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 7.9 million units. In January of 2009, the SAAR was 8.8 million units. December 2009 was a particularly strong sales month – thanks to heavy ma

Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, known in the retail world as Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental, will be buying about 40,000 fewer Chryslers than it did last year. Previously, the company was contractually bound to ensure that 75% of its fleet was composed of Chrysler vehicles. After the bankruptcy kerfuffle, the contract has been revised to compel Dollar Thrifty to purchase a new minimum number of vehicles, and the company is using the freedom to increase its model mix.

Little known fact: fleet customers could receive a $145 discount by opting not to have side airbags in certain vehicles from General Motors. That doesn't sound like a lot of money, but when, for example, Enterprise Rent-A-Car purchased 66,000 Chevy Impalas sans curtains, the company saved nearly $10 million. It's not like omitting side curtain airbags is illegal, either, as the safet

While most automakers are reporting double-digit drops in sales each month, Hyundai and Kia continue to swim against the current and maintain (or even increase) units sold. According to Automotive News, a significant part of their success is attributable to fleet sales – large numbers of cars going directly into rental and corporate fleets. During the first quarter of 2009 alone, more than 33 percent of Hyundai's first quarter

Last summer, it was the Detroit Three that were restraining themselves from dumping cars into the gaping maw of fleet sales just to boost the bottom line. Turns out they had some help with that discipline: Due to last year's events, rental car fleets shrunk by 400,000 units from 2007 to 2008. As we begin 2009, rental car companies have declared they will be trimming their fleet orde

It's common knowledge that most carmakers selling cars in Europe have a set of models that are a little "greener" than the rest of the line-up. Each OEM's respective marketing department created a set of evocative names for these models, like Citroën's Airdream. Now, Citroën has taken the good idea a step further: mating the green label to its fleet cars. This makes cars with reduced CO

Electronic fleet management is becoming a useful resource for operators keeping an eye on operational costs. Probably, the most important part of these systems is monitoring fuel consumption for all vehicles: it can point out which vehicles are burning more fuel than average and drivers who have a heavier right foot. Volvo's management offering is called Fuelwatch, and it's not only a

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San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made sure everyone knew the three converted plug-in hybrids that are now a part of the municipal fleet were PHEVs by plugging them in at a ceremony on Thursday. San Francisco's new PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) were converted by Pat's Garage with funding from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and will be used by many parts of the city

As a blogger for AutoblogGreen, I read about waste vegetable oil used as a car fuel daily but I have to admit to a "WTF?" moment when reading about details of what fuels were used by San Francisco's new fully biodiesel-capable fleet. According to the New York Times, the fleet uses virgin soy from the Midwest in a B20 mix ... and the city of San Francisco wants your used grease. Cue