County News
Mountain Mobility Alternative Fuel Vehicles
This news item expired on 8/31/2010, so the information below could be outdated or incorrect.
Mountain Mobility is very excited to announce that the first alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet began transporting passengers on Friday, July 16. This is the first of ten vehicles that will be converted to dual fuel systems and are able to run on either liquid propane or gasoline. These conversions are being paid for with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds and the remaining nine vehicles should be on the road by the end of August.
By running these vehicles on liquid propane instead of gasoline we save approximately 60 cents a gallon in fuel costs, approximately $5,000 a year per vehicle on maintenance costs due to fewer oil changes, filters, etc., and have cleaner burning exhaust and reduced particle emissions. Liquid propane is also a domestically produced fuel.
Mountain Mobility is also acquiring 11 replacement vehicles and 1 expansion vehicle with ARRA funds that will be dual fuel vehicles able to run on either CNG or gasoline. These vehicles are currently on order and we expect them to arrive late summer/early fall. At that time approximately 50% of our fleet will be running on alternative fuels and we will be driving 500,000+ miles in Buncombe County with cleaner burning vehicles and getting half of our 130,000+ gallons of fuel we use annually from domestically produced sources.
We are very proud to be able to provide our service in such a cost effective and environmentally friendly manner and are extremely grateful for the continued support we receive from Buncombe County, NCDOT Public Transportation Division and Federal Transit Administration (FTA).
For more information, call Lori Hembree at 258-0186.