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The objective of this project, Logistics Decarbonization in Strategic Environmental Justice Areas (LODESTAR), seeks to demonstrate and document the innovative use case for independent contractors to adopt electric delivery vans that serve urban, suburban and rural environmental justice (EJ) areas and provide a holistic solution to distribution center electrification that incorporates electrification of both the freight and distribution activity. LODESTAR will uplift EJ and disadvantaged communities through the Last Mile Leadership (LML) scholarship program that will invest in students and businesses who wish to study or deploy clean transportation.

Greater Long Island Clean Cities Coalition, along with its partners, promoted the use of a variety of alternative fuels for vehicles, which has allowed the low-carbon vehicle industry to grow and expand throughout Long Island. The program offered businesses and municipalities the flexibility to use alternatives that meet specific business needs. The project supported the installation of four CNG stations and 157 alternative fuel vehicles throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties.

The California Department of General Services (DGS) and Propel Fuels built 36 alternative fuel stations to provide public access to low carbon alternative fuels for more than 600,000 flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs) statewide and included a comprehensive development program. This program included identifying and establishing lease agreements for station locations, designing, engineering, and permitting plans for the infrastructure and signage, engaging contractors to perform the build and manage construction, and marketing to the public and fleets to increase adoption of the fuels. These stations distribute alternative fuels including ethanol (E85) for use in FFVs and biodiesel (B20) to the public, as well as government and private fleets.

The City of Seattle is working with Atlas Public Policy to accelerate the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in shared-mobility applications and subsequently establish best practices for use in all U.S. metro regions. The project will identify and test techniques for effective PEV deployment and electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) installation for use by ride hail drivers and shared mobility companies. This project is partnering with four major US pilot markets: Denver, New York, Portland, and Seattle.

As of 2019, the City of Seattle and its project partners have created a strategic deployment plan, developed a geographic information system (GIS)-based prioritization model for EVSE site selection and compiled reports and tools into the EV Shared Mobility Playbook. The EV Shared Mobility Playbook includes the following tools: The EV Shared Mobility Analysis Tool, Seattle’s Dynamic Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment Siting Model, and several dashboards developed in coordination with Atlas Public Policy . In 2020 the project will deploy additional EVSE, continue outreach, and evaluate the impacts of implementation strategies in different regions.

Mammoth Cave National Park started using E85 in 1999 and today runs all its vehicles on alternative fuels. Thanks to funding in 2011, the park added four propane-powered school buses, two propane-powered pickup trucks, and one electric utility vehicle to its fleet. In addition, park personnel partnered with the Kentucky Clean Cities Partnership to enhance efforts to educate visitors, employees, and the media about the benefits of using alternative fuels.

Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) partnered with Maryland Clean Cities and several of the most prominent and progressive fleets in the United States to implement the nation’s largest deployment of heavy-duty hybrid trucks in goods movement applications under the Maryland Hybrid Truck Goods Movement Initiative. This project provided financial and technical assistance to the fleets of ARAMARK, Efficiency Enterprises, Nestle Waters of North America, Sysco Corporation, and United Parcel Service (UPS) to facilitate the implementation of the largest collaborative hybrid truck project in the nation. In total, 143 Freightliner hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and hydraulic hybrid vehicles (HHV) were purchased and deployed across 29 states designed to meet the operational demands of local goods movement fleets.

This project will use distributed sensing and high performance computing to maximize mobility energy productivity at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

This project will develop ZEV infrastructure plans for the Midwest I-80 corridor (IN-OH-IL) and the state of Indiana. First, POLARIS transportation energy models of the I-80 IN-OH-IL corridor and the state of Indiana highway system will be developed. Then, the transportation energy models will be used to plan the required location for the ZEV infrastructure.

Data on medium- and heavy-duty (MD and HD) battery-electric vehicles are lacking and yet very much needed as the trend towards transportation electrification is accelerating. This project directly addresses this problem by collecting, consolidating, organizing, and making available to DOE national laboratory researchers a large set of data from a wide range of electric MD and HD vehicles operating under different conditions. The usage data and datasets encompass approximately 200 diverse vehicle sizes, types, settings, and operating conditions. The primary focus is data collection and analysis for electric MD and HD vehicles (transit buses, school buses, trucks, and off-road equipment). This project is an effort to leverage any recently collected data while strategically planning for and collecting new data from upcoming electric vehicle deployment projects across the nation. The data and the extensive research facilitated by its consolidation help inform the industry, legislators/regulators, researchers, planners, and end-users about future deployments, energy demands, and user trends.

For more information on this project, check the Technology Integration 2020 Annual Report or Annual Merit Review presentation.

Compared to conventional trucks, battery-electric trucks (eTrucks) have potential advantages in reducing fuel and maintenance costs as well as harmful and greenhouse gas emissions. The medium-duty (MD) truck market is a likely candidate for a significant and near-term adoption of eTrucks in daily, return-to-base, urban and regional trucking applications of fewer than 100 miles per day. However, many trucking fleets have very limited or no exposure to the new eTruck technology. The lack of eTruck experience and the concerns about eTrucks including range limits, charging infrastructure availability, maintenance, and cost, are considered the main barriers for the broader adoption by trucking fleets of MD eTrucks. The objective of this project is to demonstrate a MD eTruck technology fleet of three eTruck vehicles and supporting infrastructure in fleets that have little or no experience with these technologies. The MD eTruck demonstration testbed is used to evaluate the performance of MD electric trucks in various applications by a diverse group of trucking fleets. The project may help potential fleets gain necessary eTruck knowledge and experience to make informed decisions about MD eTruck adoption. The project collects eTruck fleet operational and use data to analyze the challenges and needs associated with the use of MD eTrucks in fleets across a broad range of geographical locations.

For more information on this project, check the Technology Integration 2021 Annual Report or Annual Merit Review presentation.