This test marks the first time the vehicle will be running in North America. FedEx Express and Nissan have conducted similar e-NV200 tests with fleets in Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Brazil.
FedEx and Nissan are both committed to reducing the environmental impact of their operations worldwide.
Rotating the Nissan e-NV200 into the delivery fleet is part of the FedEx EarthSmart program, a global sustainability platform designed to guide the company’s environmental commitment in the communities where it operates.
FedEx Express currently has 167 electric vehicles and 365 hybrid electric vehicles in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and China, including the units that will be deployed in Brazil starting in January. By the end of this fiscal year (May 31, 2014), the company plans to increase these numbers to 222 and 393, respectively. From 2005 to 2012, the introduction of this type of vehicle in the fleet enabled the company to save nearly 2.4 million liters of fuel.
Initiatives like this, aligned with others, such as matching the right vehicle to the right route, buying vehicles with the right-sized engines and inclusion of light vehicles into the fleet, have allowed FedEx to quickly progress towards its goal of increasing the fuel efficiency of its fleet, which the company revised in the beginning 2013 by increasing its initial improvement target from 20 percent to 30 percent by 2020.
Nissan e-NV200 is scheduled to begin mass production later this year in Europe.
