Electric Fleet Hits the Streets of Roanoke

The City of Roanoke’s Fleet Management Division recently acquired two electric vehicles–a compact sedan and a pickup truck with a dump bed. The sedan will be utilized by the Planning, Building and Development Department primarily in the downtown district to perform building Code Enforcement and inspections, and the truck will be utilized by the Department of Parks and Recreation for maintenance and cleaning of greenways and parks.

Manufactured by Miles Industries, a California-based company, the vehicles were purchased in May with allocated Capital Equipment Funds established through surplus equipment sales.

According to Ken Bernard, Fleet Manager, the city hopes to identify potential fuel savings as well as demonstrate its commitment to environmental stewardship.

Facilities Management staff has installed volt meters on each vehicle to track the electric energy consumption, and those measurements will be compared to the use of unleaded fuel in other vehicles. From this data, city will evaluate whether future purchases of electric vehicles are a viable option.

Each vehicle operates off a 72-volt battery system, with a top speed of 28 mph, which is why these vehicles are used only within the city, where speed limits are low. The estimated monthly expense for recharging the battery system (assuming full depletion of batteries each day) is about $8, and a completely depleted battery takes about seven to eight hours to recharge.

A PDF of the vehicles can be found here: Electric Fleet

Latest Articles

- Advertisement -

Latest Articles

- Advertisement -

Related Articles