AT&T’s Alt-fuel Fleet Hits 5,000 Vehicles

Providing another sign that alternative-fuel vehicles are beginning to gain some traction among American businesses, AT&T Inc. says it now has 5,000 electric, hybrid, and mainly natural-gas-powered cars and trucks on the road.

The company this week said it recently deployed its 5,000th vehicle, a natural-gas van, in Palmdale, CA. The milestone is a third of AT&T’s commitment to have 15,000 alternative fuel vehicles by 2018 to save forty-nine million gallons of gasoline over the decade, a goal the company seems increasingly certain to meet. It has more than two hundred fifty such cars and trucks in Missouri and Kansas, with more to come.

"In a short period of time, with the support of community leaders all over the country, we’ve invested in the deployment of thousands of advanced technology vehicles that promote cleaner air, use less fuel and help AT&T lower its operating costs," said Jerome Webber, Vice President of AT&T’s global fleet operations.

Those sentiments, especially about using less fuel and lowering operating costs, are crucial if alternative fuels are to help curb oil imports. Commercial fleets can more easily overcome such obstacles as a lack of dispensing stations for natural gas, but in the end their success is tied to being an economical option to gasoline and diesel.

It’s too early to say how successful they’ll be, but Kelly Gilbert said AT&T’s experience showed that the promise could be a reality.

Gilbert, the Director of the local office of Clean Cities, a federal program encouraging the use of alternative fuels, said, "They have demonstrated it can become a success."

She expects other announcements in the next few months involving small businesses in the area using natural gas in transportation. Natural gas, propane, and electricity are all vying for a role as alternate fuels, and each is likely to have a role, she said.

The area’s main electric utility, Kansas City Power & Light, and Staples, the office supplies retailer, are using electric trucks built by Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City. Meanwhile, the Kansas City, KS, school district last year bought forty-seven natural-gas buses, and the city of Kansas City, a pioneer in using alternative fuels, now has about to hundred natural-gas trucks, cars, and buses.

AT&T, which has a total fleet of 70,300 vehicles, by the end of the year had two hundred nineteen alternative-fuel vehicles in Missouri, the company’s fourth-largest statewide alternative fuel fleet, and fifty-five of the vehicles in Kansas. In the Kansas City area, AT&T has thirty-one electric hybrids, fourteen natural-gas-fueled vehicles, and two pure electrics.

Of its 5,000 such vehicles deployed nationwide since 2009, 3,400 of them use natural gas.

The U.S. is flush with natural gas, and producers have started to scale back production in hopes of reversing a recent price collapse. But they have promised to boost supplies again once demand picks up.

T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oil and natural-gas billionaire, and others say much of that increased demand can come in fueling transportation, especially commercial fleets. The use of the fuel in transportation remains a tiny fraction of total natural-gas use but has picked up since 2009. Natural gas prices are providing fuel to fleets for as little as half the cost of gasoline and diesel.

"We’re showing steady growth," said Katherine Teller, an analyst with the Energy Information Administration.

Fast-fill natural gas dispensers can cost $500,000 or more, which only large fleets can justify. The Kansas City area has only one dispenser open to the public, but that could change soon. The city of Kansas City has a network of dispensers to serve its vehicles but it is in negotiations to turn them over to a private company that would convert them to public fueling stations.

Meanwhile, AT&T is poised to play a larger role in alternative fuels, with an expected investment of $565 million toward its 15,000-vehicle goal. That includes a big bet on natural gas with plans to have 8,000 vehicles using the fuel on the road by 2013.

"While some may see just another car or truck on the road, we think these vehicles represent the shared values of the communities where we live, work, and play," said Webber, the AT&T Vice President.

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