U.S. Buying 101 Chevy Volts, Will Install Government Charging Stations

The Obama administration announced on May 24 it is buying more than one hundred plug-in electric vehicles, and will install charging stations in government buildings in five cities, including Detroit, Washington, D.C., San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The General Services Administration (GSA) — which oversees most of the federal government's 600,000 vehicle fleet — plans to buy one hundred sixteen plug-in electric vehicles, including one hundred one extended-range Chevrolet Volts, ten battery electric Nissan Leaf vehicles, and five Think City EV models from Finish EV startup.

As part of a pilot project, the vehicles are to be placed with twenty government agencies in five cities -- Detroit, Washington, D.C., San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

GSA buys the vehicles for two-thirds of the federal fleet, acquiring about 65,000 new vehicles annually. The U.S. Post Office owns and buys the remaining vehicles.

The purchase of the new EVs will not increase the overall size of the fleet. Because of stiff demand for EVs, GSA is not expected to take possession of the Chevrolet Volts until 2012. It's not clear when the government will take possession of the Leaf and Think City vehicles.

The government made the purchase decisions after accepting competitive bids from automakers.

The purchases were announced by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, General Services Administrator Martha Johnson and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley.

GM assembles the Volt at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, while Nissan plans to start building the Leaf in Tennessee next year. Finish Think assembles the EV City in Elkhart, IN, and has its North American headquarters in Dearborn, MI. Valmet Automotive builds the Think in Europe, and is a stakeholder in the EV startup.

GSA said in April that the 35,000 vehicles ordered so far this year boast an average improvement in fuel efficiency of twenty-one percent. The average miles per gallon is 23.4, up from last year's 19.1. The new cars will save 2.4 million gallons of fuel, and about $9 million annually. The administration has doubled the number of hybrids in the federal fleet over the last two years.

President Barack Obama wants to cut oil imports by one-third by 2025, over 2008 levels, and to put one million plug-in electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Earlier this year, Obama said all federal vehicles purchased by 2015 would be "advanced technology" vehicles. He formalized the directive in a presidential memorandum which directs federal agencies with a methodology for agencies to determine their optimal fleet size. The order doesn't apply to "security vehicles" such as those driven by the Secret Service.

The rules would allow the government to continue using full-sized SUVs and other more inefficient vehicles if they can run on alternative fuels like E85, which is mostly ethanol. But under the order, those federal vehicles could still be operated on traditional gasoline blends.

Under a separate executive order, Obama has called on the federal government to reduce gasoline usage by thirty percent by 2020 for the federal fleet.

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