Search engine giant, Google is expanding its fleet of plug-in cars after completing the installation of the largest corporate infrastructure in the US.
The Silicon Valley firm is now adding 30 new plug-in cars including models of the range-extended Chevrolet Volt and the fully electric Nissan Leaf, several models of which have already been delivered and are available for the firm’s employees to use today.
The company says that innovations made within EV technologies have enable the firm to expand its fleet of plug-in cars.
When Google.org launched its RechargeIt initiative in 2007, there were no commercially available plug-in hybrid EVs on the market. So the company bought several Toyota Prius cars and had them retrofitted with A123 Hymotion batteries to create a mini-fleet of plug-in hybrids.
It was the birth of firm’s ‘Gfleet’-low emission cars available for employees to use. Writing on the company’s blog Rolf Schreiber, Technical Program Manager, Electric Transportation says the fleet has since become a valued perk for workers and makes it easier for ‘Googlers’ (Google employees) to use the company biodiesel shuttle system to commute to work.
To recharge the new Gfleet vehicles, Google has been working with Coulomb Technologies to install 71 new- and faster -Level 2 chargers to add to the 150 Level 1 chargers already installed over the last few years, bringing the total capacity to more than 200 chargers, with another 250 new ones on the way.
Overall, the firm wants to electrify five per cent of its parking spaces. Schreiber writes that the Gfleet and biodiesel shuttle system have resulted in net annual savings of more than 5,400 tonnes of CO2-equivalent to taking 2,000 cars off the road, or avoiding 14 million vehicle miles every year.
Writes Schreiber: “But we’re only one company, so we hope other companies think about how they can incorporate these new technologies into their own infrastructure.
“By supporting new, green transportation technologies, we’re enabling our employees to be green and doing our part to help spur growth in the industry.”
