FedEx Smashes Fleet Efficiency Goal

by | Mar 7, 2013

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FedEx Express has beaten, seven years early, its goal of improving global fleet fuel efficiency by 20 percent by 2020. The company has followed this up with a new, more aggressive efficiency goal.

The shipping company set the original goal, against a 2005 baseline, in 2008. In the intervening years FedEx Express cut its fuel use by 22 percent against the baseline. Much of the improvement occurred in the past year: in 2011, the fleet was 16.6 percent more fuel efficient than 2005 levels. 

FedEx Express has set a new target of a 30 percent improvement in fuel efficiency for its global vehicle fleet by 2020 over 2005 levels. This revision mirrors the company’s 2012 announcement to increase its aircraft emissions goal, from a 20 percent to a 30 percent reduction in global aircraft emissions intensity by 2020.

FedEx Express expects to save about 20 million gallons of fuel this year through these efforts to increase vehicle fuel efficiency.

The company’s significant progress towards its fuel efficiency goal is the result of a number of initiatives:

  • By the end of its fiscal year 2013, FedEx Express will have increased the size of its advanced alternative-energy vehicle fleet to include 360 hybrid-electric vehicles and 200 electric vehicles. To date, these vehicles have traveled more than 15 million miles in revenue service, FedEx says.
  • FedEx Express has bought vehicles with “right-sized engines” like the Sprinter vans manufactured by Mercedes-Benz. FedEx currently has more than 10,000 such vehicles in service, comprising more than 35 percent of its US pick-up and delivery fleet. Each Sprinter-type van is about 70 to 100 percent more fuel-efficient than the original truck it replaced.
  • Since 2011, FedEx Express has incorporated almost 200 composite-body Reach vehicles into its global fleet; an additional 200 of these vehicles will be added to the fleet by the end of its fiscal year 2013. The lower weight design, along with the engine, allows for a 35 percent reduction in fuel usage over most conventional walk-in vans.
  • About 35 percent of the FedEx Express diesel vehicle pickup and delivery fleet has already been converted to more efficient and cleaner emission models that comply with 2010 EPA diesel emission standards.
In July, FedEx Express agreed to buy 19 additional B767-300 aircraft from the Boeing Company. The 767s are about 30 percent more fuel-efficient than the MD10s that they replace and should reduce operating costs by more than 20 percent, according to the delivery company.

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