Purolator Courier, Canada’s largest courier company, has increased its existing order for hybridelectric delivery vans, vehicle manufacturer Azure Dynamics Corp. has announced.
The amended purchase order was placed shortly after the August 8, 2007 funding announcementby the Ontario Government. Ontario is investing CDN$15 million over four years in a pilot projectto encourage businesses to convert to more environmentally-friendly technologies, such as hybridpower. The project will help make medium-duty hybrid trucks more affordable for commercial fleetoperators.
Over the last two years, Purolator has placed two orders with Azure for a total of 134 HEVs,of which 49 have been delivered and are in service. Under the amended purchase order of August 14,2007, the courier company increased the order to include an additional 20 HEVs. The remaining 105HEVs will be supplied on a parallel hybrid-electric Ford E- 450 platform and are due for deliveryin the second half of 2008.
“Since introducing Azure’s hybrid-electric vehicles (“HEV”) to our fleet of curb-sidedelivery vehicles in 2005, we have logged more than 333, 000 kilometres, saving almost 60,000litres of fuel and preventing the emission of over 150 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions,” saidRobert Johnson, President and CEO of Purolator.
“Purolator is leading the way to less fuel consumption and substantial emissions reductionsthrough the adoption of cleaner hybrid-electric technologies for its fleet vehicles. We lookforward to continuing to work closely with Purolator to support its commitment to cleaner, morecost- effective fleet vehicles,” said Scott Harrison, CEO of Azure.
“We now have two major delivery fleet operators as lead customers for our new parallelhybrid-electric delivery van on the Ford E-450 platform,” he added. “Looking ahead, our goal is tosecure two additional major delivery fleet operators as lead customers by year end to furtherstrengthen our order book and increase our production volumes with our key supply partners.”
