HOUSTON – The city of Houston is launching its first municipal electric vehicle car sharing program.
Mayor Annise Parker announced the new partnership with with Zipcar, Inc. It will be called Houston Fleet Share. This program is the first of its kind to use electric vehicles.
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Through the program, 50 city-owned fleet vehicles, including 25 Nissan Leaf electric vehicles and other plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles, will be outfitted with Zipcar's proprietary car sharing technology for use by city employees across numerous departments.
"Houston is setting the pace for sustainability efforts, and we are very proud to be working with Zipcar to launch the nation's first-ever municipal EV green fleet sharing program," said Parker. "Although we've always been known as the oil capital of the world, we're gaining momentum on being the energy capital through programs like Houston Fleet Share and the Houston Drives Electric initiative."
The city of Houston currently has the third largest municipal hybrid fleet in the country. Approximately 50 percent of the city's non-specialty, light-duty fleet has been replaced with hybrid vehicles -- that's more than 800 vehicles. The Houston Fleet Share program will help the city gain new efficiencies and reduce costs while further reducing the environmental impacts of their fleet.
"By utilizing Zipcar's technology to make our fleet usage more efficient, we will be able to further reduce emissions and cut back on fleet fuel consumption, helping save money while also having a positive impact on our environment," said Parker.
The program will eventually include additional locations and charging stations throughout the city. It will also provide a larger variety of vehicle types, and will reduce the number of vehicles that are not used or rarely used as a way of right sizing the fleet.