Green Fleet Roundup: Tesla, Ford, Caterpillar, NASCAR

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Tesla Model STesla fans have signed a White House petition asking that the electric car company be allowed to sell directly to consumers in all 50 states. More than 100,000 people signed the petition, the minimum support level required for an official response, so the White House will have to respond to the petition, Cnet reports.

Ford engineers are developing a flexible patented technology to rapidly form sheet metal parts for low-volume production applications. Once fully developed, the technology will allow for lower costs and ultra-fast delivery times for prototypes, within three business days instead of conventional methods that take anywhere from two to six months.

Caterpillar Marine Power Systems  shipped its first MaK M 46 DF dual-fuel marine engine that will power a new ship ordered by Germany’s AIDA cruises.  The engine left the MaK Rostock, Germany facility en route to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan where it will immediately be placed in the ship’s hull.

Clean Air Power, the developer of dual-fuel engine management software for heavy-duty vehicles, exhibited its first prototype vehicle retrofitted with a Genesis-EDGE Dual-Fuel product suitable for the US market at the Alternative Clean Transportation EXPO in Washington, DC last month. The prototype truck was driven across the country from Poway, Calif. to Washington, DC on liquid natural gas.

NASCAR officials announced the installation of 20 Eaton electric vehicle charging stations at NASCAR headquarters in Daytona Beach and corporate offices in Charlotte and the Research and Development Center in Concord, NC. The EV charging stations are part of a new multiyear partnership with Eaton Corporation.

Food Authority, which distributes produce and groceries to eastern states, has expanded its fleet with 66 fuel efficient, refrigerated trucks that it has leased from Ryder Systems. The certified Clean Idle engines in Food Authority’s fleet comply with the EPA’s newest and most stringent emissions standards and will have the lowest diesel emission levels in the world, Ryder says.

Dominion has joined the Department of Energy's Workplace Charging Challenge, which is designed to help increase the number of US employers offering workplace charging for electric vehicles. Earlier this year, it installed two separately metered electric vehicle charging stations as a pilot program at its Tredegar campus in downtown Richmond, Va.

San Jose, Calif. has received 38 Mitsubishi i-MiEV hatchbacks battery-powered cars in a deal that involved a total of 50 cars, touted as the biggest all-electric municipal fleet vehicle deployment in the country, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Three other cities in the region received the remaining cars: Los Gatos got five, Campbell got three and Mill Valley received four vehicles. The cities pay little or nothing for the cars, in a deal put together by the Bay Area Climate Collaborative with Mitsubishi and other partners.

Photo Credit: Tesla Motors Model S

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