By David Shepardson
(Reuters) – New York said on Wednesday it will replace more than 900 city-owned fossil-fuel powered vehicles with electric models and install 315 additional EV charging ports after receiving a $10.1 million U.S. Transportation Department grant.
The announcement is the latest by a U.S. government agency to speed the shift away from gas-powered vehicles to EVs. New York City currently has more than 4,000 government-owned electric vehicles and by later this year says close to 20% of city vehicles will be EVs.
The new funding will help New York acquire 382 Chevrolet Bolt EVs, 360 Ford E-Transit vans, and 150 Ford F-150 E-Lightning pick-up trucks as well as 25 plug-in hybrid street sweepers.
The city already operates about 850 Bolts, built by General Motors, and more than 200 Ford Mustang Mach-Es.
New York said the city currently has more than 1,360 charging ports, 120 fast chargers and 106 free-standing solar carports, and plans to add another 600 ports in the next 18 months.
The city’s goal is to install 1,000 curbside chargers by 2025 and 10,000 charging stations by 2030. “Electric vehicles, they are clearly the future,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday.
New York City has about 26,000 government vehicles in service.
Last month, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) said it would more than double its planned electric delivery vehicles purchases, tapping $3 billion in funding from Congress.
USPS said it plans to buy at least 66,000 electric vehicles through 2028 after committing in July to buying 25,000 next-generation electric delivery vehicles.
President Joe Biden in December 2021 issued an executive order directing the federal government to end purchases of gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Biden’s order also directed 100% of light-duty federal acquisitions by 2027 be EV or plug-in hybrid EV (PHEV) purchases.
Federal agencies quintupled purchases of EVs and PHEVs in the 12-months ending Sept. 30, moving from approximately 1% of vehicle acquisitions in the 2021 budget year to 12% of light-duty purchases in 2022, or 3,567 total, the White House said.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
