As part of the delivery company’s drive to reduce its carbon emissions, UPS has deployed 18 new electric delivery vehicles in the Houston / Galveston area of Texas.

The delivery business has been working with thye US Department of Energy, local governments and non-profits to help reduce its environmental impact.

UPS senior VP for global engineering and sustainability Mark Wallace said of the deployment, “Our goal is to deploy vehicles with the least environmental impact possible in each region, consistent with local regulations and economic conditions.”

In September the company announced that it was testing a diesel electric extended range low emissions delivery vehicle around London in the UK. This is to test the idea of a system where the diesel engine is used to recharge the battery for longer runs. In this case with the diesel engine as a generator rather than a drive engine such as the Toyota Prius, emissions would be significantly lower because it does not accelerate or decelerate. This has been developed in partnership with UK automotive company TEVVA UK.

The Texas trucks have been developed with the Workhorse Group and have been specially developed with the regular stop and go peculiarities of a delivery truck’s use in mind. To that extent, they use regenerative braking, where energy can be recovered by the batteries when the vehicle brakes.

These vehicles, as with their UK equivalents are part of the UPS Rolling Laboratory where it tests new vehicle concepts on the road in real world situations. Globally, UPS now has nearly 6500 such concept vehicles in regular use as it works out how best to reduce its emissions from delivery vehicles – a major component of the company’s global carbon emissions. It currently has 574 hybrid and electric vehicles on the road today, with the majority of the Rolling Laboratory vehicles being alternative fuel such as LPG and hydrogen.