ROANOKE, Va. – More businesses in the New River Valley and the Roanoke Valley are starting to use electric vehicles instead of gas vehicles.
Jessie Kirby is a delivery driver and a fan of the new electric vehicles at Dominos.
“It’s so smooth, I barely have to think about it,” Kirby said.
The Chevy Bolts are part of the new fleet program the company launched late last year, and the goal is to help reduce overall costs since the vehicles don’t use gas.
Having electric vehicles as an option also gives people the opportunity to work.
“You don’t have to have your own vehicle anymore to work here, we have a lot of folks out there who want to work,” Kevin Shaw, Dominos Franchisee owner, said.
Rental car companies like Hertz are seeing a push for electric vehicles too.
“Usually once I mention to our people we have them we definitely want to try that,” Lisa Germanio, a Hertz Clerk, said.
Virginia Tech sustainability leaders said the globe’s temperature has increased every decade since 1950 because of fossil fuel use.
“Vehicles, in the United States contributed to 29 percent of fuel consumption,” Hesham Rakha, Director of the Center for Sustainable Mobility at Virginia Tech Transporation Institute.
The concern, some experts said, is the possibility that the world’s temperature reaches 2 degrees Celsius. We could see more droughts, intense hurricanes, and increased wildfires.
“This global increase in temperature is going to be detrimental in the melting of the ice in the north and south pole,” Rakha said.
It is why experts encourage people to find alternative methods to use fossil fuels.