Verizon (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) is taking its environmental responsibility to the streets in Long Island as the service provider starts up five hybrid fuel aerial-lift trucks--the first of 160 alternative-energy vehicles the service provider plans to add to its trucking fleet in New York.
Otherwise known as bucket trucks, these new hybrid trucks contain batteries that provide power to the engine and provide power to the mechanical boom that raises the four-sided bucket that enables technicians to work on aerial telephone lines or other equipment. Traditionally, the mechanical booms were powered by the truck's gasoline or diesel engines.
The hybrid truck's batteries will be recharged overnight when power demand from the electric grid is low by plugging in heavy-duty charges into an electrical outlet. By just adding just five hybrid trucks to its fleet, Verizon said it will use 750 to 1,500 fewer gallons of fuel and cut greenhouse emissions by about seven to 14 tons. Based at the service provider's Woodbury, N.Y. garage, the five trucks will serve the northern and central areas of Nassau County.
For more:
- see the release here
- View a video of the hybrid trucks here