Mobility: Electric Local Delivery Vehicles

 
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Why is this a Climate Smart indicator? 

  • Freight vehicles, including local delivery vehicles, are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions - according to latest estimates, around 8 percent of total communitywide emissions, and about 14 percent of communitywide transportation emissions. 

  • If more local delivery vehicles were electric, this would reduce our emissions. It would also reduce air, noise, and stormwater pollution.  

  • Fully electric vehicles (also known as Battery Electric Vehicles, or BEVs) require little maintenance, saving money and time. In addition, both fully electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids save money on fuel costs. 

What is the City doing to make progress on this indicator? 

In Progress/Ongoing 

  • Work funded by the Delivering Zero Emissions Communities grant to identify and begin to address barriers to the adoption of electric vehicles by local delivery companies

  • As a next step, the City is working on putting together a Zero Emissions last-mile delivery pilot in the Santee neighborhood. We have been working with the community to figure out which type of pilot would work best and where such a pilot should take place in the neighborhood.

About the data 

Sources  

Vehicle population estimates for Santa Clara County from the California Air Resources Board’s EMFAC2021 Emissions Inventory model. The EMFAC2021 model provides data for a long list of different vehicle types (described in Appendix 4 of the User’s Guide). This metric is based on data for vehicle types that are often used as local delivery vehicles (LHD1, LHD2, MDV, and T6 Instate Delivery Class 4-7). For this metric, “electric” includes both battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). 

Limitations  

The EMFAC2021 model is based on California Department of Motor Vehicles data for the years 2000 to 2019.  

The finest level at which the EMFAC2021 model provides data is at the county level. This metric assumes that the percentage of electric local delivery vehicles in San José is the same as the percentage of electric local delivery vehicles in Santa Clara County as a whole. 

Some vehicles in Santa Clara County of the types used to calculate this metric may actually be used for other uses, and some other types of vehicles may also occasionally be used for local deliveries. 

Last updated 

August 2023