US Postal Service halts vehicle buys

When it comes to procuring alternative fuel vehicles, the U.S. Postal Service leads the way. Its alternative fuel fleet — nearly 38,000 vehicles that run on ethanol, compressed natural gas or other nonpetroleum products — is the largest of any employer nationwide.
But other companies have a chance to catch up.

The Postal Service won’t be purchasing any vehicles — gasoline-powered or otherwise — until 2015 at the earliest, said Walt O’Tormey, the agency’s vice president of engineering.

The reason is twofold, O’Tormey said. First, the agency is investing several billion dollars in the next few years on new letter-sorting machines, leaving little money for other capital purchases. Second, the agency doesn’t want to make a major investment in new vehicles until there is more of a consensus on what will be the prevailing alternative fuel source for the next 20 or so years.

Most of the agency’s alternative fuel vehicles run on E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. There is strong support in Congress for increasing the use of E-85 nationwide, but the fuel has several limitations that are only now beginning to emerge.
Because corn-based E-85 can’t be transported in pipelines used for traditional petroleum, the fuel is available mostly in the Midwest, where it can be trucked from the cornfields to the refineries to the filling stations. That’s a problem for the Postal Service, which has more routes along the coast.

The Postal Service is not covered under a January executive order that requires executive branch agencies to reduce their gasoline consumption by 2 percent annually and increase their use of alternative fuels by 10 percent a year. However, the agency is taking several steps to reduce its fuel consumption, including consolidating delivery routes, promoting ethanol usage where it is cost neutral, and using vehicles more efficiently, a spokesman said.

Because the Postal Service has such a large fleet — more than 210,000 vehicles — the infrastructure must be in place before the agency can move wholesale to alternative fuel vehicles. That means parts suppliers and mechanics, in addition to fueling stations.
O’Tormey recalled one instance in which the company supplying batteries for a vehicle the Postal Service was testing closed up shop.

The Postal Service has been experimenting with the next generation in fuel technology, although nothing has emerged as capable of replacing petroleum yet, O’Tormey said.
The agency has 30 two-ton trucks that run on electricity in New York City and 10 Ford Escape Hybrids in California, although most hybrid vehicles are too small to meet the Postal Service’s needs.