AT&T said Wednesday that over the next decade it will replace 15,000 vehicles, or about 20% of its fleet, with cars and trucks powered by compressed natural gas, electricity and other alternative fuels.
“AT&T is making the largest-ever commitment by any U.S. company to purchase alternative fuel vehicles,” AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said Wednesday morning in a speech in Washington.
He said the $565 million initiative will cut AT&T(T)’s gasoline bill by an estimated 49 million gallons and reduce carbon emissions by 211 million metric tons over ten years as its alt fuel fleet grows from about 100 vehicles now on the road. “That’s good for the environment and it will reduce our reliance on foreign oil – my new neighbor Boone Pickens and I have talked a lot about that,” Stephenson said.
Pickens, the Texas oil wildcatter-turned-wind magnate, advocates using natural gas as fuel for cars and trucks rather than to make electricity, which would be supplied by massive wind farms.
“Smart American companies can be green and profitable and they don’t have to trade one for the other,” Pickens said in a statement Wednesday.
The communications giant will spend $350 million to buy 8,000 compressed natural gas, or CNG, vehicles and $215 million on electric hybrid cars made in the United States. That could be a small boost for battered automakers General Motors (GM) and Ford (F). (Of course, it could also be good news for those other leading “domestic” alt fuel manufacturers, Honda (HMC) and Toyota (TM).)
A U.S. car maker will build the chassis for the CNG vehicles and AT&T will have them converted to run on compressed natural gas. The company will also build a network CNG fueling stations. All told, AT&T said 5,000 jobs will be created or saved through the program in the first five years. About 7,100 AT&T passenger cars wi
ll be retired in favor of electric hybrids and other alt fuel vehicles.
Green Wombat 
The math in this article doesn’t add up. That would be a savings of 6,901 gallons per vehicle. It is off by a factor of at least 10. Come on now. I thought Fortune mag reporters could do math. ??
$565 million divided by 15000 vehicles equals nearly $38K per vehicle. A little steep, I wonder if AT&T shareholders will be as enthused…
Awesome….thanks AT&T for taking the lead!
I have clarified that the claimed gasoline savings are the total for the first 10 years.
I commend Mr Stephenson but I would urge him to go further and initiate greening the thousands of AT&T buildings around the US and world. I urge Verizon to do this too. As a former bell head in the SBC VP budget office I know they could save a lot of money over the long haul.
that will be enough for me to change my mobile service to AT&T.
I rahter give my money for someone that is doing something for the environment
I am not sure if there are tax incentives for companies, but bravo.
It is $38,000 a vehicle but there is a lot of overhead involved. To Joe in Simi Valley, this isn’t 3rd grade. I figured out that it would cost $3766.67 per year to run these vehicles. The math also shows 3277.67 gallons per vehicle per year, or 327.77 gallons per year per vehicle. There are a lot of other things that you can figure out from the numbers supplied. These don’t seem too unrealistic.
if at&t buys any foreign cars and not of just the big 3 I think we should boycott their business
Much of the rest of the world is already using or developing CNG and LP for vehicle fuel. Good for us to jump on the train finally.
great, i was born in new zealand 30 years ago and we had a full size ford sedan that ran on cng/lpg way back then. There were also gas stations everywhere with these alternative fuels…even 30 years ago. Wahoo talk about being behind (as this country is in everything but money)
The comment about boycotting if AT&T buys anything other than American, is the wrong message. Typical of what’s wrong in our country. You either believe in capitalism or you don’t. This is a good move for everyone.
If AT&T buys any American cars then they’re making a mistake. American cars are worthless and all those companies should be allowed to go under. Make a product worth something and people will buy it. Squander a fortune making junk that doesn’t last and you’ll get whats coming to you.
Regardless of the instant investment, AT&T should be applauded just based on the fact that they are jumping ahead when all other companies are still relying on SUV’s or for the more up to date companies, Escalade Hybrid/Yukon Hybrid for their “savings”. I don’t see a problem with any investment into any alternative fuel source. Gasoline is a limited product, and we will not know when we will run out, so with that uncertainty, why not start now?
I have an idea that could act as a litmus test to see which elected officials were committed to the green policy /initiatives of the administration.
Here it goes, wouldn’t it be interesting to note or track the number of officials who owned green vehicles or were in the process of purchasing them and making that a political issue. For example if democrats truly want to lead in this recovery with emphasis on green technology it is important to lead the people by example not just policies. Bailing out the automotive industry and asking car manufactures to produce more energy efficient cars with less or no harmful emissions means very little if officials are not willing to spend the tax money we give them to buy those cars for themselves. It is very important to lead by example and be a catalyst and not just sit on the sidelines and wait to see if we the people respond to their incentives/policies.