What we need to protect our nation is the environment to create in a few short years an entirely new transportation system with millions, and then tens of millions, of electric cars and trucks, says Frederick W. Smith, FedEx CEO. He urges Congress to pass a bill to promote electric vehicles. FedEx has deployed its first all-electric delivery vehicles and will have 31 in service by the middle of this year. Early results confirm that the costs of operating and maintaining electric vehicles are significantly less than those for traditional internal-combustion-engine vehicles, he says.
"So we are making a start at FedEx, but it is not enough when it comes to the question of combating our nation's dependence on oil," he says.
"I am not someone who tends to advocate increased government involvement in the private sector," he says. "But there is no free market for oil. This is not a market issue -- it is a national security issue. Republicans and Democrats are talking about electric vehicles as a truly bipartisan solution to our oil dependence. We all must urge them to continue to move the ball forward. What is needed now is an urgent, national commitment to action."
