Same-Day Courier Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Future Vehicles

- A look at future plans for the Green Delivery Service fleet.

The options currently available to transportation companies are very limited, but there are a number of vehicles on the horizon that will be both highly efficient to operate, and inexpensive to purchase. In light of ever rising fuel and maintenance costs, these two attributes will be essential to our goal of maintaining price stability to our customers, while at the same time doing our small share to help reduce the country's dependency on foreign oil.

NOTE: This page is a work in progress. Regular updates will be made new information becomes available

2009

In early 2009, Green Delivery Service will begin a pilot test of at least 3 different hybrid delivery vehicles. As at least half of our deliveries are small packages, two of the new hybrids will be small or compact cars. There is no point in wasting the majority of your fuel just to move the vehicle itself, which is what you would be doing with a partially loaded full-size van. Among the candidates for this pilot test are the 2009 Toyota Prius, the Hyundai Accent Hybrid, a used Honda Insight, and Honda's new (yet to be named) compact hybrid. The third test vehicle will need to be a van, and a likely candidate will be a hybrid converted Sprinter van, which already gets about double the gas mileage of other full size vans.

2010

By 2010 the number of hybrid vehicle options should be rising rapidly, and will include minivans and small trucks. Next generation compact hybrid cars will be more efficient and more affordable than ever, and we hope to see production PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) with efficiencies approaching 100 MPG.

It is also possible that we find natural-gas powered vehicles in moderate production by 2010. What's so good about NG? Well, it's clean-burning, costs about 30% less than gasoline, and we like it because, as the world's second largest producer of NG, we get all we need right here in the US (unlike oil of which the US imports 70% of it's consumption). Why not keep those American dollars here instead of sending them overseas? Conventional vehicles can easily be converted to run on NG, making the equipment cost virtually identical, and with much lower running costs. Yes, by using NG we are still depleting an non-renewable energy source, and for this reason it is not the long term solution, but a much better interim option while we await advances in alternative renewable technology.

2011

Invasion of the Electrics
We at Green Delivery Service would love to operate electric delivery vehicles right now, but current battery technology and lack of mass-production result in an expensive vehicle with a range of only 20-60 miles between charges. In two years from now, we think that energy storage technology will have improved enough to double or triple that range and we will enter the era of the electric.

Electric-only vans and trucks are that achieve over 100 miles on a charge are already being produced in other countries right now. The energy efficiency of electric vehicles, in terms of cost per mile, is a small fraction of it's gasoline powered equivalent. Electric motors, with very few moving parts, are also much more reliable and easy to maintain.

2012 and beyond

While it is impossible to predict this far in advance what will be available and what our needs will be at that time, we hope that by this time we will begin to see viable vehicle options that use zero gasoline or other non-renewable resources.

Hydrogen fuel-cells have the potential to greatly extend the range of electric vehicles, but further advances are needed in the areas of efficient hydrogen production, storage, and distribution, as well as cost-effective design and manufacture of the fuel cells.

Update - November 2012

Alternative fuel vehicles in the small car class, like the Honda Civic GX (NGV), and the Chevy Volt(EV), will be publically available in the next few years. We are considering testing these in local delivery applications along side readily available hybrid models in the same class. Acquisition cost increments still remain an important factor for any business use vehicle and tax credits may not be applicable in certain scenarios.

Small vehicles account for less than half of local delivery fleets, and development of mid-sized cargo class AFVs (light trucks, minivans, and cargo vans) is lagging well behind the small/compact AFV, in terms of general availability dates.

To contact Green Delivery Service, Inc. regarding Alternative Fuel Delivery Vehicle fleet testing, or single unit testing in a local use, commercial environment, click here.





For more information, or to contact Green Delivery Service management for answers to general questions, investor information, or business proposals, please see our rmation becomes publically available.