Getting office-supply products to Staples’ 2,000-plus stores around the world and directly to business customers takes more than pushing an Easy button, even if Mike Payette, director for fleet equipment, has four of the advertising-theme props, “in four languages,” on his desk.
Depending on who you are in the medium-duty truck business, things are going great, or well, or not so good but looking up. A few builders have picked up market share in Classes 3, 4 and 5 and in Class 6-7. Others have lost some or a lot, but sales continue to climb for most midrange truck makers.
GE has plans to add 2,000 Ford C-MAX Energi Plug-in Hybrids, which will join its Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Prius models. The fleet will also be adding other alt-fueled vehicles as part of its ongoing ecomagination program.
Think “alternative fuel” and what comes to mind – natural gas, or maybe propane? Volvo Trucks North America believes it has one better: dimethyl ether, or DME, which it thinks is the real fuel of the future. Volvo, with the help of a small chemical company, financial investors and officials in the state of California, intends to get it to market as a motor fuel by 2015.
Chicago has ordered 20 heavy-duty, electric-powered trash trucks that will be the first of their kind in the nation.
The electric trucks will run almost silently, produce practically no emissions and, with no traditional pow-ertrains to fuel and maintain, will cut operating costs by at least 50%, says Jim Castelaz, chief executive officer of Motiv Power Systems.
The City of Chicago has ordered 20 heavy-duty electric-powered trash trucks that will be the first in the nation, according to one of the companies that won the official bid
It's all about the slow economy