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ROLF SCHREIBER: I'm Rolf Schreiber.
I'm a Technical Program Manager here at Google, and I
work on electric transportation initiatives.
We started Google RechargeIt back in 2007 as one of
Google.org's first projects.
The goal of the program was to help accelerate the
commercialization of plug-in electric vehicles and to show
that the technology was viable.
We also wanted to help build the ecosystem for a
sustainable electric transportation future.
Passenger vehicles make up 1/2 of the transportation global
greenhouse gas emissions each year.
We already had our employee shuttle system in place, which
removes over 2,000 cars from the road each year.
Plug-in vehicles have the ability to reduce tailpipe
emissions and criteria pollutants by 40 to 80% over a
traditional internal combustion vehicle.
We figured these vehicles could abate the emissions from
our employees driving around our Mountain View campus as
well as from their own personal vehicles.
So we acquired a number of Toyota Prius hybrids and Ford
Escape hybrids, as these were the only vehicles that had an
aftermarket plug-in module.
These cars were the genesis for Gfleet, our employee
car-sharing program that allows our employees access to
green vehicles to run errands or do other trips around our
Mountain View campus.
Having access to our Gfleet vehicles has also inspired
Googlers to go out and buy their own electric vehicles.
JOE FABER: My name's Joe Faber.
I'm an attorney here at Google.
This is my Nissan Leaf right behind me.
I drive it to work every day.
I've been doing it for about two months, and I really enjoy
it, especially when I drive past all the gas stations.
But I couldn't have made a decision to buy this car
unless Google had put in the necessary charging
infrastructure to allow me to plug it in.
It makes me really happy to work for a company that thinks
that this kind of infrastructure is an important
part of our work environment.
ROLF SCHREIBER: Now that the Chevrolet Volts and the Nissan
Leafs are available, we're excited to be ushering in this
next generation of plug-in vehicles.
We've already deployed a number of Leafs and Volts and
soon we'll have over 30 vehicles in Gfleet for our
employees to use.
We're also expanding what we believe to be one of the
largest corporate EV infrastructure deployments in
the United States.
We also wanted to provide free workplace charging for
Googlers with plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, so we
partnered with Coulomb Technologies to expand our
charging capacity.
RICK NEEDHAM: Sustainability is core to our culture.
Our electric vehicles and employee charging stations are
really just part of our broader green
transportation system.
They're great perks that also make it easier for Googlers to
use our shuttle system so they have alternative means of
transportation once they get to campus.
That's all part of making Google as green as possible.
Our biodiesel shuttles use the latest in clean diesel
technology, saving 80% of emissions from engines that
were used just a few years ago.
And we continue to experiment by putting solar panels on top
of our shuttles so we can pre-cool them without having
to run the engines at all.
Between Gfleet, our employee charging stations, and our
shuttle system, we're taking the equivalent of 2,000 cars
off the road every day.
That results in a net annual carbon savings of 5,400 tons,
which is equivalent to avoiding 14 million vehicle
miles every year.
By investing in new green transportation technologies,
we're not only providing great benefits for our employees,
but we're trying to do our part to help
the industry grow.
But we're only one company.
So we hope that other companies will take a look at
these technologies and figure out how they can incorporate
them into their own operations.
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