Sustainable Transportation Fair and UF Electric Vehicle Fleet Goal

Charlie Lane, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

I am pleased to share information about this year’s Sustainable Transportation Fair as well as a campus-wide sustainability goal related to electric vehicle (EV) use.

The 2015 Sustainable Transportation Fair will be held on Wednesday, October 21, at the NE corner of the Reitz Union lawn (behind the Hub and Marston Library) and will include an EV car show. On display will be a number of current campus EVs, new demonstration models, and private vehicles of UF employees who have made the move to EVs, plug-in hybrids, and electric bicycles for their personal commuting. For more information, see http://sustainable.ufl.edu/news-events/events/sustainable-transportation-fair/

As a campus-wide sustainability goal, I am challenging the UF community to add EVs to UF’s growing fleet of biodiesel and hybrid vehicles. The goal is to have EVs compose 10 percent of UF’s fleet within the next 5-10 years.

Laying the foundation for this goal, plans are underway to expand the charging infrastructure required to support more EVs across campus. UF already boasts four electric charging stations open for personal and fleet use, with four more to be installed this year. We are also compiling specifications with UF Purchasing to allow campus and other state institutions to eventually purchase an expanded list of vehicles with competitive pricing.

Units like Housing & Residence Education, the Counseling and Wellness Center, and the University Athletic Association already are leaders with fully electric, street-legal vehicles in their fleets. UF’s Physical Plant Division has taken the next step by recently adding the first two plug-in electric hybrids to the UF fleet. Help us advance our EV goal. If you or your department are considering the purchase of a new vehicle, please explore an EV option at the Sustainable Transportation Fair.

For specific questions and more information, contact Matt Williams, Director, Office of Sustainability and Energy Integration, at miwilliams@ufl.edu.