The Drive Natural Gas Initiative, a collaboration between natural gas utilities and producers that can be accessed via the American Gas Assn., has launched what it calls a Natural Gas Fleet Savings Calculator “to help fleet owners conduct a preliminary analysis of the total costs associated with converting a fleet, or part of a fleet, to run on natural gas instead of diesel or gasoline.”
The Natural Gas Fleet Savings Calculator is a spreadsheet-based, total cost of ownership evaluation tool. It comes pre-loaded with the current numbers for natural gas vehicle availability and cost, but it is also fully customizable for fleet managers to input the parameters that best describe the kind of vehicles they use, and how they use them.
The Natural Gas Fleet Savings Calculator is available by clicking here.
The Drive Natural Gas Initiative worked with Ricardo, a global provider of product innovation, engineering solutions, clean technology and strategic consulting, to develop the tool.
“The Natural Gas Fleet Savings Calculator is powerful step forward in our ability to help reduce barriers to entry for natural gas vehicles by providing fleet managers with the information they need to make their own assessments about the benefits of natural gas,” said Drive Natural Gas Initiative executive director Kathryn Clay.
“Throughout the nation, businesses are making the switch to natural gas because it’s good for the bottom line,” Clay continued. “Any fleet owners interested in putting less money into their fuel tanks and more money into growing their businesses should consider what natural gas can do for them. By providing information tools like this new calculator, we are making it easier for more people to take advantage of our domestic abundance of this clean energy source.”
The advocacy group noted that “Natural gas is 47% less expensive on average than equivalent gallons of gasoline and 59% less than equivalent gallons of diesel.”
