Federal Fleet Vehicles Required to Become Electric?

The US Government has an extensive fleet of vehicles between mail trucks, military vehicles, delivery vehicles, etc. There are 645,000 to be exact. And President Biden has announced that as a part of his “Buy American” executive order they will all be replaced with electric vehicles made here in America.

Essentially, the plan will make it harder for federal agencies to contract with companies overseas to purchase foreign products by reducing loopholes in existing rules. It also edits the definition of an “American-made” good. In addition, more money will be kept in the US economy as the federal government currently spends $600 billion on procurement contracts each year.

In the statement Biden said the order would represent “the largest mobilization of public investment and procurement, infrastructure and R&D since World War II.”

The order will create a website where American businesses can see what contracts are being offered to foreign vendors which will then allow them to alert the government that a domestic alternative is available.

However, this transition to electric in government vehicles has already been years in the making. According to the Federal Fleet Report there were 357,610 government-operated gasoline vehicles and 3,896 electric vehicles already in 2015. By 2019, those numbers grew to 368,807 gas and 4,475, electric. The other 275,000+ vehicles in the fleet are E-85 and diesel-based vehicles.

As of now there is no direct timeline as to when the conversion to an all-electric fleet could begin.