Twenty percent of FedEx Express pickup and delivery fleet are now fuel efficient and clean emission vehicles in accordance with the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s 2010 diesel emission standards.

The transformation of their fleet is in line with the company’s goal to make its vehicle fleet 20 percent more fuel efficient by 2020. 

In a statement, FedEx Express announced that they are well on their way to reaching this goal ahead of schedule with 2011 seeing their vehicle fleet  reaching a fuel efficiency level of 16.6 percent than it was in 2005. 

“We have achieved 80 percent of our vehicle fuel efficiency goal as of the conclusion of fiscal year 2011, compared to our original baseline set in 2005,” said Mitch Jackson, staff vice president of environmental affairs and sustainability, FedEx Corp.

Given this, the company is currently reevaluating the 2020 goal to potentially increase their fuel efficiency goals.

FedEx Express pursued several avenues to reduce their fuel use and emissions, including the use of advanced vehicles and technologies to optimize their vehicle operations.

The company plans to increase advanced vehicles use include the addition of 87 all-electric trucks to bring their electric vehicle count to 130; the testing of hybrid hydraulic parcel delivery vehicles to reduce fuel usage by 40 percent; and the testing of six standard delivery vehicles retrofitted with all-electric drivetrains from suppliers such as AMP, Smith Electric and Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation.

The company is also planning to integrate fuel efficient Sprinter-type vans from Mercedes – Benz.  FedEx will have more than 11,000 such vehicles in service by 2013, more than 35 percent of its fleet.  The Sprinter vans are about 70 to 100 percent more fuel efficient than the original trucks FedEx is planning to replace them with.

Fed Ex Express will be adding 114 Reach composite-body trucks manufactured by Utilimaster on an Isuzu Motor chassis.  These trucks have a lower-weight design that is expected to save up to 35 percent in fuel over conventional vans.

FedEx Express is a unit of FedEx Corp, a global logistics company which provides a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce and business services.  – EcoSeed Staff