Skip to main content

Zero emission delivery vehicle project begins in Houston

The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) has teamed up with the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) and Smith Electric Vehicles Corporation to reduce vehicle emissions from delivery trucks in the region. As part of a US Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored effort, local fleets will replace existing diesel delivery vehicles with thirty all-electric medium and heavy-duty Smith Newton trucks for daily operations in the Houston-Galveston area.
September 2, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) has teamed up with the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) and 3822 Smith Electric Vehicles Corporation to reduce vehicle emissions from delivery trucks in the region.  As part of a US Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored effort, local fleets will replace existing diesel delivery vehicles with thirty all-electric medium and heavy-duty Smith Newton trucks for daily operations in the Houston-Galveston area.

The project is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of all-electric delivery vehicles to perform at the same level of operation as similarly-sized diesel delivery vehicles while significantly reducing emissions and petroleum use.  By deploying emission trucks for this program, H-GAC expects to reduce petroleum consumption by over 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel over the two-year demonstration period. The project will have additional impact with an expected reduction in GHG emissions by 37.5 million tons of carbon equivalents per year and an expected reduction in criteria pollutants of over 2,000 tons per year.

The Smith Newton trucks include the company’s proprietary Smith Power, with variable 40-120 kWh battery pack options; Smith Drive, and Smith Link, an onboard system for monitoring the vehicle’s vital statistics.  The vehicles that will be deployed under this grant are based on Smith’s latest production model Series 2000, which has been fully deployed in several locations across the country.

Each Smith Newton will be delivered with an electric vehicle charging station (EVSE).  Fully recharging the vehicle will take approximately 6 to 10 hours per night, depending on the size of the battery pack and the state of charge when the vehicle returns to the fleet depot.

The H-GAC zero emission truck project will serve as a pioneer for this innovative clean technology by helping fleets deploy all-electric delivery trucks that will improve their fleet operations and benefit the local community. CTE, a non-profit and leader in alternative transportation technology deployments, will manage the project, collect operational data, and report on the project’s impact.   The combined efforts of project partners will help further the objective of developing a market for this advanced electric transportation technology.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • TransCore receives National Recognition Award
    June 3, 2013
    TransCore’s work for the Delaware Department of Transportation (DELDOT) to convert the I-95 Newark toll plaza to open road tolling has received a National Recognition Award for exceptional achievement in engineering. TransCore served as the lead integrator on DELDOT’s conversion of the Newark Toll Plaza on I-95, adding two new electronic highway speed lanes on both the north and south bound plazas that successfully reduced congestion in a busy corridor for motorists and commercial freight carriers. Plaza th
  • Nissan exceeds electric taxi milestone
    November 24, 2015
    Nissan is heading the electric vehicle revolution with more than 550 electric taxis now on the road in Europe. During 2015 alone, over 100 electric vehicles were delivered to taxi companies across Europe and growth of the electric taxi market looks set to continue, as its popularity has started to take hold in Eastern Europe.
  • Cooperative infrastructure an aid to environmental aims
    February 3, 2012
    Speculate to accumulate Andras Kovacs looks at how the historical focus of cooperative infrastructure on safety can be oriented to aid emerging environmental aims
  • Countdown to 2015 ITS America Annual Meeting & Expo
    May 1, 2015
    There’s less than a month to go before the 2015 ITS America Annual Meeting & Expo gets under way in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania gets underway in what will be a unique and visionary event. The theme is Bridges To Innovation so for the more than 2,000 of the nation’s top transportation and technology business leaders and investors, policymakers, public agency representatives, and researchers, this will be one of the most forward looking Annual Meetings.