The Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) has added two battery-electric vehicles to its fleet as part of a new pilot program. Adding the two EVs will help the department assess the sustainability, ease of use, and maintenance of these vehicles compared to the department’s traditional fossil-fueled light-duty fleet vehicles.

The two Ford Focus Electric vehicles have a range of roughly 70 to 100 miles per charge, and will be based at DelDOT’s Danner Campus in Dover where an EV charging station has been installed. Replacing a gas car with an electric vehicle is estimated to save 4.7 metric tons of carbon emissions annually.

“When most people think of DelDOT vehicles, they think of large trucks like our snow plows and construction equipment, which are largely diesel powered. Not all of our work requires the use of large, fossil fuel vehicles, so this is an opportunity for us to be more environmentally conscious and evaluate the usage of EVs as a fleet vehicle,” said Secretary of Transportation Jennifer Cohan.

The addition of the two electric vehicles, costing $27,299 each, brings the total number of EVs in the state fleet to a total of five, with the other three currently in use by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

In recent years, states such as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, as well as numerous municipalities, have launched initiatives to incorporate EVs in their fleets to reduce emissions and fuel costs.