Staff Writer
New battery-powered vehicles at Naval Air Station Jacksonville will help further reduce petroleum usage and need for space near an electrical outlet.
Though painted white, Vantage Vehicles International’s Green Trucks will have plenty of green impact at NAS. They differ from previous electric vehicles by the noticeable solar panel on the roof of the cab, which helps maintain the charge in the vehicle’s battery.
The first truck was put into service on July 1. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast rents the vehicles to Navy bases from Charleston, S.C., to Fort Worth, Texas, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The vehicles are referred to as slow moving vehicles with a top speed of about 25 mph and NAVFAC has 314 of them in its Southeast inventory, with 23 equipped with solar integration.
NAS has 16 of those solar-equipped vehicles with seven more on the way in October, the start of the next fiscal year. The base has a total of about 60 of the slow moving vehicles in its fleet currently.
“The solar integration provides the vehicles with a better range before they need to be recharged,” said Jesse Evans, Southeast transportation specialist for NAVFAC. “The regular electric vehicles lose charge just by being parked and not plugged in. The solar panels allow the charge to be maintained while they are out in the sun with a trickle-down charge.”
The Navy’s goal is to have 750 of the vehicles in its Southeast fleet by 2015. Replacing fossil fuel vehicles with them would save an estimated $900,000, said Evans.
The Vantage trucks at NAS are two- and four-passenger models, with the four-passenger cabs featuring a truck bed and the two-passenger models featuring a truck bed with walls that can be folded down to convert to a flat bed.
Both vehicles can transport 600-800 pounds total. NAS plans to use them to transport people and supplies..
“They are good for administrative supply delivery, and airfield groups use them as follow trucks that carry tools and supplies out to the ready line,” said Evans.
While the vehicles lack an overabundance of space in the cab for passengers, they have improved with each generation.
“The crew cab may be a little tight when you have four people in there,” said Evans, “but if you compare them to the first electric cars that came out, there is a lot more room in these trucks. They keep getting better with each new generation.”
The trucks are also without air conditioning, but they do have fans.
“We tested them out in Fort Worth and the fans worked fine in that heat,” said Evans.
The trucks will be replacing the small pickups in the fleet, such as the Ford Ranger.
“Comparing the two, our operating costs will go from 20 cents a mile with the gas-powered to 2 cents a mile with the electric,” said Evans.
The new vehicles will provide a savings of about $384,000 across the Southeast, Evans added.
The largest maintenance cost of the vehicle is replacing the battery, and that happens faster with regular electric vehicles because of the cycle of draining and charging the battery.
The solar integration helps eliminate some of those peaks and valleys by maintaining the level of charge.
The Navy, through executive orders and instruction by the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, was charged with reducing petroleum usage by 50 percent by 2015 using a 2009 baseline. The electric vehicle program is one of the efforts to achieve that goal.
Recognizing that reducing petroleum use, but increasing electrical use, might not be the best solution, solar power is being considered to move the electrical vehicle program forward.
“We are looking at solar-charging facility structures to help lessen our electrical demand as we look to utilize these vehicles in the future,” said Evans. The charging structures “will serve what we have now and what we expect to see in the future.”
Vantage Vehicle International is in Corona, Calif. It introduced its EV (Electric Vehicles) line in December 2007. The chassis are produced by an automobile company in China and the electric components are added at the Corona location.
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