Kyocera to Begin Full Adoption of Hybrids as Company Cars
23 January 2008
Kyocera Corporation this year will begin the full-scale adoption of hybrid vehicles for use as company cars. The policy will cover company cars used for general sales activities and movement between plants.
Kyocera Corporation currently has 194 such vehicles, 179 of which it is planning gradually to replace with hybrids starting in 2008 (15 existing hybrid cars will remain in place).
The completion of the replacements will achieve a 48% reduction in vehicle fuel consumption and in CO2 emissions: 88 kiloliters/year in vehicle fuel and 204t-CO2/year in emissions.
Kyocera has been instituting other measures to combat global warming. To date, the company has installed solar power generating systems at its headquarters, offices, and plants, introduced high-efficiency turbo chillers, and shifted product shipping from trucks to railway (modal shift). As a result, CO2 emissions declined significantly in FY2007 (April 2006 to March 2007), down 34.1% per net sales, compared with the 1990 level.
Good for Kyocera. Especially the rail freight. JIT production shifted to use trucks when oil was cheap by externalizing its costs. Freight still does it, but it is more efficient it terms of energy than trucks. In europe, the trains are also electrified already I believe to some degree so even better.
Posted by: aym | 23 January 2008 at 10:16 AM
There is an ad for rail freight in America that says a car can be transported by rail at something like 400 miles per gallon and this is suppose to be as important, if not more important, than how many miles per gallon the car can get on the road.
However, that car is transported maybe once from factory to dealer, but the car runs every day for years on the road. If the car gets 40 mpg and travels 20,000 miles per year for 10 years, I would say that is more important than 400 miles per gallon over 2000 mile only once.
I think the efficiency of freight travel by rail is a good thing, but let's not get carried away with hyperbole.
Posted by: sjc | 26 January 2008 at 11:33 AM