Skip to main content

All-electric delivery trucks hit the streets of Columbus

Frito-Lay North America division, the US$13 billion convenient foods business unit of PepsiCo, has started rolling out some of its fully electric delivery trucks in Columbus.
March 1, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
3488 Frito-Lay North America division, the US$13 billion convenient foods business unit of 3493 PepsiCo, has started rolling out some of its fully electric delivery trucks in Columbus. The first 10 trucks which are going into service will ultimately be part of the largest planned fleet of commercial all-electric trucks in North America.  This year, Columbus is one of three cities in the US, along with New York City and Ft. Worth, Texas, to deploy the vehicles with plans to roll out an additional 155 trucks in 2011.

Once the planned 176 electric trucks are deployed, Frito-Lay will eliminate the need for 500,000 gallons of fuel annually. Each truck emits 75 per cent less greenhouse gases than a conventional diesel truck.

"The electric vehicle programme builds on a long-standing commitment by Frito-Lay North America and its parent company PepsiCo to environmental sustainability," said Mike O'Connell, director of fleet for Frito Lay North America. "With the seventh largest privately owned fleet in the US, we have set a goal of becoming the most fuel efficient fleet in the country, and these vehicles give us an opportunity to use the latest advances in transportation technology as a significant way to reduce our environmental impact."

Related Content

  • Inland waterways can de-stress city roads
    March 17, 2016
    David Crawford looks at an under-utilised solution for city-centre deliveries. The use of rivers and canals for moving freight is a well-established mode in North Western Europe, where it can take advantage of an intensively developed network. In the Netherlands, 40% of the total volume of goods transported internally goes by water; the figure for Flanders (the neighbouring Dutch-speaking region of Belgium) is 11.5%.
  • Scania tests truck platooning
    February 11, 2015
    Dutch Infrastructure and Environment Minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen, along with representatives of the European Commission, recently took part in test drive of truck platooning on the A28 in the Netherlands. The convoy consisted of three Scania R500 Streamline trucks; the steering was done by truck drivers, but speed and braking were controlled by the front truck using wi-fi technology. The plan is to have fully self driving trucks in the future. This method of coupled drive, based on adaptive cr
  • IRF Geneva leads UN road safety meeting
    October 5, 2022
    The International Road Federation (IRF) in Geneva convened key industry leaders to discuss “Action for Road Safety: Private Sector Leadership” on the occasion of the UN High Level Meeting on Global Road Safety hosted in New York
  • New York to pilot cordon-based congestion charging
    March 16, 2012
    From 2009, if all goes to plan, New York will run a three-year cordon-based congestion charging pilot - the first in the US. Upon accession, US Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters signalled her intention to continue her predecessor Norman Mineta's initiative to specifically target road congestion. And, with initiatives such as the US Department of Transportation's (USDOT's) Urban Partnership Program actively promoting tolling as a part of a compound solution to the problem, the way was opened for the co