UCLA Fleet Sustainability Plan

UCLA Fleet is responsible for the acquisition, management and disposal of university-owned vehicles. University of California President Janet Napolitano announced the Carbon Neutrality Initiative (CNI) in 2013, which commits all UC fleets to emit net zero greenhouse gases by 2025. In support of this, UCLA Fleet is preparing Carbon Neutral Fleet Plans that detail its approach to reaching net-zero carbon emissions from fleet vehicles by 2025. However, despite its best efforts, UCLA Fleet does not project it will be able to meet this goal under its current plan due a variety of internal and external factors affecting its capacity to purchase the most energy-efficient models available and prioritize vehicle replacements based on carbon emissions.  Thus, being able to reduce emissions to as close to zero as possible is a high concern.  

 

Through our one-on-one interviews with various stakeholders inside UCLA, we gained insight into UCLA Fleet’s most significant barriers to achieving carbon neutrality, and identified opportunities for improvement.  These limiting factors are both internal (e.g., financial, operational, cultural) and external (e.g., vehicle availability). 

 

Internal barriers include: (1) operational needs, (2) individual department and employee comfort with exsiting vehicle options, and (3) financial capacity, given the generally higher upfront cost of more energy-efficient models and cost of charging/fueling infrastructure for EVs, CNG, etc.  These barriers were exacerbated by the the fact that many UCLA departments are fully costed, which makes budgeting difficult and incentivizes departments to replace vehicles less often than is optimal from a fleet science perspective.  Excessively delaying and failing to budget for timely new vehicle purchases results in funds being spent on excessive maintenance and emergency replacement costs that could be invested in capital expenditures on newer, more fuel-efficient vehicle types.

 

The greatest external limitation faced by Fleet Services are EV purchase options in the manufacturer marketplace, especially for higher carbon-emitting vehicle types, such as trucks and vans.  In particular, full-size vans acocunt for 24% of UCLA’s Fleet but generate 89% of its emissions.  There is one EV full-size van option on the market, but it is too tall to meet the clearance requiremetns of UCLA’s parking garages.  As a result, UCLA anticipated not being able to replace these vans util 2029. 

 

Thus, our recommendations are as follows:

1. Electrify medium duty vans as soon as financially possible by working with a local OEM who indicated willingness to tailor its medium-duty electric vehicle (MDEV) product to UCLA’s specific operatinal needs. This could reduce tailpipe emissions by 89% per year - 10 years earlier than anticipated.  Doing so could reduce UCLA’s tailpipe emissions by 20,000 metric tons over this decade.
2. Revitalize UCLA Fleet’s approach to working with specific departments by (a) aligning budgeting incentives, (b) implementing change management techniques, and (c) utilizing the quality and money dimensions of the “green bundle strategy^[1]” to encourage departmental adoption of EVs, streamline the budgeting process, promote a sustainable culture across campus, and minimize excess maintenance and emergency vehicle replacement costs. 
3. Reevaluate the feasibility of using solar panels to charge EVs to reduce indirect emissions from electricity generation, now that prices of solar panels have declined substantially since UCLA’s last inquiry and evaluation.

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^[1] Delmas, Magali, Colgan, David. (2018). The Green Bundle. Stanford University Press.