Buncombe County outlines tiered fleet policy to prioritize electric vehicles and expand charging infrastructure

Jake Phillips, the county fleet manager, presented proposed updates to the county’s fleet sustainability policy and said the changes are mostly procedural and terminological rather than substantive.

Phillips said the policy’s central mechanism is a tiered procurement system that prioritizes electric vehicles where they meet business needs, with alternative fuels and then conventional gasoline/diesel ranked below. “The highest tier would be electric vehicles,” Phillips said, adding that a vehicle evaluation team involving fleet, sustainability and budget staff would review purchases.

Phillips provided fleet inventory figures: 532 county vehicles excluding vendor-operated Mount Mobility and trailers, of which roughly 375 serve public safety; he said the fleet currently includes two alternative‑fuel vehicles, 21 EVs and about 100 conventional vehicles. An FY27 request anticipates replacing roughly 50 vehicles due to age and mileage and recommends buying about 18 new vehicles, creating an opportunity to increase the share of electrified vehicles.

Board members and outside participants pressed Phillips on alternative fuels and lifecycle emissions, noting that some biofuels and CNG can have lifecycle greenhouse‑gas impacts that reduce or negate benefits depending on feedstock and production. Staff acknowledged the complexity and said certain heavy diesel vehicles presently have few electrification alternatives.

Staff described charging infrastructure plans: the county is adding Level 2 chargers and a dozen new chargers with some fast‑charging capacity in county facilities, creating a GIS map of chargers countywide, and evaluating where to make spots available to employees and the public. Operational details — whether to charge users, PCI compliance and billing — remain under discussion.

Phillips said the approach will be opportunistic: the county does not plan to convert every vehicle immediately but to make incremental changes where replacements and charging infrastructure allow. No formal policy vote occurred at the meeting.