Mayor Tim Keller Announces First Electric Vehicles in City Fleet, Sets Goal of 100% Alternative Fuels for All Eligible Vehicles

September 7, 2019

Today, Mayor Tim Keller introduced the first-ever electric vehicles in the City of Albuquerque fleet and signed an Executive Instruction (EI) to shift all eligible vehicles to electric, hybrid, and alternative low-emission fuels.

“We can’t afford to wait for someone else to take the kind of bold action on climate change we need to protect our community,” statedMayor Tim Keller. “Any realistic effort to fight climate change has to include steps to reduce the impact of vehicles on our air quality and public health. Technology of electric, hybrid, and alternative-fuel vehicles has steadily improved, and the time has come to turn the page on gas-powered cars and trucks. And as the electric grid becomes solarized, each vehicle replaced with electric will eliminate all future emissions for that vehicle, forever.”

The City is planning to transition 63% of its eligible light-duty vehicles to electric or hybrid-power as part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ American Climate Cities Challenge by transitioning 50 vehicles by the end of 2020.

Mayor Keller’s Executive Instruction will add to that commitment, taking additional eligible gas-powered vehicles off the road as they come up for replacement or when new vehicles are purchased. The result will be a City fleet in which every eligible gas vehicle is replaced by a low and no-emissions vehicles, which will reduce the City’s carbon emissions, save taxpayer money on fuel, improve Albuquerque’s air quality and public health outcomes, and reduce our City’s reliance on fossil fuels. The EI states the reasons for the major transition in the City’s fleet:

“In the Albuquerque area, vehicles are the largest contributor of hazardous air pollutants and also emit carbon monoxide and precursors which form ground level ozone. These pollutants can cause lung damage and heart disease, shortening human lifespans. Reducing ozone precursors is especially important here because ozone concentrations in our air are close to the federal health-based limit. Vehicles are the primary source of nitrogen oxides, a key ozone precursor.

The use of electric, alternative fuel, and hybrid vehicles has five benefits for our community: (1) reduced dependence on petroleum; (2) reduced harmful tailpipe emissions; (3) reduce ground level ozone; (4) improved community health outcomes; and (5) continued compliance with the Clean Air Act.

Eligible vehicles are defined as non-public safety fleet vehicles that have a low or no-emissions alternative and whose functional purpose allows for incorporation of the alternative. As EV technology and charging station infrastructure improves, the number of eligible vehicles in the fleet will continue to increase.