The new hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) join roughly 20,000 low-emission and alternative-fuel vehicles already in use.
UPS has invested more than $15 million in its alternative-fuel fleet, which comprises multiple technologies, including compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, propane, electricity and hydraulic hybrid technology. Since 2000, the alternative fuel fleet has travelled more than 165 million miles.
UPS was the first package delivery company to introduce a hybrid electric vehicle into daily operation with a research program in early 1998. In 2001, the company deployed the industry's first hybrid electric delivery truck into regular service in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2004, the company deployed a second generation HEV in Kalamazoo, Michigan and tested its first hydrogen fuel cell delivery truck in regular service.
The 200 new vehicles have been deployed in Austin, Houston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington DC, Long Island, Minneapolis and Louisville.
Before this latest deployment, UPS was operating fifty hybrid electrics in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix.
