[BobWallace]

"In a couple of days, Fedex will be unveiling its new diesel hybrid-electric van at the European Road Transport Show in Amsterdam. These vans will manufactured by the Italian company Iveco and based on Inveco's Daily Transport van. The company is aiming for a 30% reduction in fuel consumption (based on operating cycle) with the standard Daily Hybrid."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10 ... ectric.php

A 30% reduction in fuel consumption certainly would help the environment and the company's bottom line.

Might even help your paycheck.... ;o)

[cipi604]

why buy a new and more expensive hybrid car, when you're not going to have a job anymore or an industry to work for?!
cars will be over, get over it already!

[Aimrehtopyh]

General economic downturn is already hurting us way more than fuel costs.

Think about it this way. Last year UPS grossed like 36 Billion dollars. Of that let's say ten percent went towards fuel. (I've tried and tried to find out what our fuel costs are at UPS but to no avail.)

Then consider that we move like 15 million packages a day. My guess is that the average dollar value of the products we're moving is around $100 per package. I'm probably way off, but let's run with that.

So that's half a trillion worth of economic activity enabled by 3.6 billion dollars worth of fuel. Sounds like a pretty sweet racket if you look at it in terms of energy.

[BobWallace]

You not very high in management, eh? ;o)

You might want to start hoping that UPS cuts their fuel expenditures. With that downturn they're going to have to cut costs somewhere.

Fuel or payroll?

Fuel or payroll?

Fuel or payroll?

Where shall we slash? Oh, where? Oh, where.....

--

Bottom line.

Big corporations will respond to increased fuel costs by cutting fuel usage. They can read numbers just fine.

Small companies better sit up and take notice.

[Denny]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cipi604', 'w')hy buy a new and more expensive hybrid car, when you're not going to have a job anymore or an industry to work for?!
cars will be over, get over it already!

[azreal60]

While this isn't applicable for a company that delivers, the vast majority of expenditures for gasoline is in the area of commuting, and that's one of the one's expanding the fastest. So, if you really want to do something about conservation and efficiency, the biggest and best thing you could do is convince large american companys to start doing one of two things.

A company that has a lot of people doing physical work, such as a factory, could partner with an area and sponsor their costs to live there. Sort of the old company town idea, with much better living conditions. And provide transport from that area for the workers. Encourage it 100 little ways, and people will jump at the idea. It wouldn't even have to be that big of savings or that great of housing for ton's of people to like the idea.

The other side, white collar, has another route. As alot of them already telecommute, the next step is an entirely virtual office. My wife fits in the later category. It would save us something on the order of 2000 dollars a month if my wife was able to do her job from home. Not to mention hugely reduced fuel usage. If you convinced very large company's that this was the wave of the future, you could conceivably of set peak in the US by more than a few years if it was implemented on a large scale.

I just don't think it will get implemented.

[KrellEnergySource]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('azreal60', '
')The other side, white collar, has another route. As alot of them already telecommute, the next step is an entirely virtual office. My wife fits in the later category. It would save us something on the order of 2000 dollars a month if my wife was able to do her job from home. Not to mention hugely reduced fuel usage. If you convinced very large company's that this was the wave of the future, you could conceivably of set peak in the US by more than a few years if it was implemented on a large scale.

I just don't think it will get implemented.

[BobWallace]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cipi604', 'w')hy buy a new and more expensive hybrid car, when you're not going to have a job anymore or an industry to work for?!
cars will be over, get over it already!

[Aimrehtopyh]

I've been seeing national ads for Amazons new grocery delivery offering. Why would such a biggie be EXPANDING their exposure to transport costs? Hmm.

When did Wal-Mart start seeing it's first decline in sales? If I remember right it was when gas prices were at their highest. The theory was that most of their (largely underclass) customers had tight-as-a-bowstring budgets and had less to spend at Wal-Mart when gas went up.

I've actually seen an unexpectedly positive correlation between gas prices and the volume at UPS. It would seem that the higher gas prices go the more apt people are to shop online.

Eventually we'll get to the point where expanding mortgage, heating, electric, tax and "protection money" bills will eat up all the disposable income people have been using for online shopping. I'll be laid off from that way before fuel prices keep trucks off the road.

No, I'm not very high up the food chain at UPS. Being near the very bottom I mostly unloaded trailers this morning.

[BobWallace]

"Eventually we'll get to the point where expanding mortgage, heating, electric, tax and "protection money" bills will eat up all the disposable income people have been using for online shopping."

Let's consider an alternate reality.

Let's imagine a world where we get our power very inexpensively from solar and wind and we use that to power our houses, industries, and transportation.

Let's imagine a world where we don't ship boatloads of our money to other countries in exchange for their oil.

Why not make that world our reality as opposed to letting ourselves crash and burn?

[mommy22]

I work for the county that I live in, and deliver meals to the elderly that still live in their homes. It's cheaper for the county to pay for a meal delivered 5 days per week, and send out aides as needed, than to have these folks in nursing homes.
We get 38 cents per mile for mileage on the route, and there was much buzz to make that flexible based on the gas prices for the previous month....but I doubt that would ever happen. I can imagine a day when the price of gas gets too steep for delivering (on the part of us drivers), although we would likely continue as we know that these are some of the only meals these folks get during the day.

[BobWallace]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mommy22', 'I') work for the county that I live in, and deliver meals to the elderly that still live in their homes. It's cheaper for the county to pay for a meal delivered 5 days per week, and send out aides as needed, than to have these folks in nursing homes.
We get 38 cents per mile for mileage on the route, and there was much buzz to make that flexible based on the gas prices for the previous month....but I doubt that would ever happen. I can imagine a day when the price of gas gets too steep for delivering (on the part of us drivers), although we would likely continue as we know that these are some of the only meals these folks get during the day.