Sandy Springs-based shipping giant UPS said it is buying 1,000 propane-powered package delivery trucks to add to its fleet over the next year.
After a test of the propane trucks in Gainesville last winter, UPS is making a $70 million investment in the vehicles and related infrastructure. The trucks will be used in rural areas where propane is more readily available in states including Louisiana and Oklahoma, and each can go up to 200 miles on a tank of propane.
The propane trucks will add to UPS’s “rolling laboratory” fleet of alternative fuel vehicles including electric, hybrid electric, CNG, LNG and other vehicles. UPS also has about 900 propane vehicles in Canada. By early next year, about 4 percent of UPS’s fleet of package cars in the United States will be alternative fuel vehicles.