Replacing Oil

With oil over $130 a barrel and no relief in sight AT&T has made reducing their fleet’s petroleum fuel consumption and operating costs a top priority according to a recent press release. This announcement comes less than a week after the delivery giant UPS placed a record order for alternative fuel vehicles.

AT&T’s Fleet Operations division needs an army of vehicles across the country in order to keep their communications infrastructure running smoothly. How smoothly is a matter of argument for many of their customers, but regardless they have a lot of service trucks on the road burning a lot of increasingly expensive fuel. The latest addition to the service fleet will consist of 105 alternative fuel vehicles, including 25 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vans, 65 electric hybrid Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) vehicles — Ford Escapes and Toyota Priuses — and 15 electric hybrid conversion work trucks.

AT&T’s alternative fuel fleet to consist of Ford Escape and Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles

The new ‘Green Fleet’ should help the communications giant save almost 35,000 gallons of fuel annually. At $4 a gallon that’s $140,000 a year in fuel costs. We’re not sure what kind of deals they’re getting from Ford and Toyota for all the Escapes and Priuses, but it’s not going to be long before their investment in alternative fuel vehicles pays off!

Oh yeah, the new vehicles will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and benefit the environment. Blah blah … AT&T cares .. blah blah … global warming bad … blah blah.