Sawatch Labs Helps Make Sustainability Goals Possible for City of Seattle

The City of Seattle has an ambitious goal of cutting carbon emissions 50% by 2025 and being completely fossil fuel free by 2030. The city’s fleet leadership chose Sawatch Labs and data from Geotab to help meet their sustainability goals, accurately measure electricity use by the city’s electric vehicles (EVs) and determine which internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles could be cycled out for EVs.

The Challenge: Cut Carbon Emissions and Go Fossil Fuel Free

As a hub of high-tech companies, the City of Seattle has the reputation of being ahead of the curve. With a mandate to lower fleet carbon emissions and eliminate the use of fossil fuels, Philip Saunders, Deputy Director of Logistics and Emergency Management and the Green Fleet Program, had his work cut out for him. Once the emissions goals were set, Saunders determined that the only way the fleet could meet these goals was with telematics. “The key is to have telematics, because we have to be able to measure vehicle miles, routes traveled and how miles and routes fit together,” Saunders says. That’s where Sawatch labs came in.

Our Solution: Measure the True Cost and Benefit of EVs

The city of Seattle needed a telematics solution, and the team at Sawatch Labs along with Geotab’s fleet tracking software were the ones for the job. Our team provided a telematics solution that could report an EV’s kilowatt hours (kWh). This was critical for the City of Seattle since Saunders and his fleet team measure electricity as a fuel and include it as part of the fleet’s total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations. We were able to show instant results that tracked kWh usage in EVs and route mileage averages.  

Sawatch Labs uses these EV specific data points to observe and report on vehicle utilization.  This allows fleets to ensure they are on track to maximize both economic and environmental benefits of electric vehicles. 

Through telemetry, a vehicle can objectively communicate its actual use. Actual usage data, as opposed to driver reported data, enables fleets to make informed decisions about which applications are best suited to benefit from electric vehicles with least impact to daily operations.

 The primary reports the fleet relies on are:

•      kWh reporting

•      Idling

•      Speeding

•      CO2 reduction

Currently, about 12% of the City of Seattle’s fleet consists of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) with another 16% either hybrid or plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV). “Most people make changes without data,” Saunders notes. “But we’re able to show the data and let the data speak to them.”

The Results: Becoming the Greenest of Green Fleets

Tracking the benefits of the city’s transition to sustainable fleets had been skewed by the pandemic, but The City of Seattle has still marked a number of achievements. One of the biggest is the ability to concretely show fuel savings with electric vehicles. Having the data-rich reports from Geotab and Sawatch Labs has been critical in reporting sustainability progress. “The real eye opener for me was the big picture. I saved $2 million in fuel and spent only $100,000 on electricity.” Says Saunders, “We want to use telematics on every vehicle. That’s the way to go. It’s the future.”

The fleet is required to drop 8% in metric tons of emissions per year. Saunders says that drivers have been supportive of the new data-driven process, particularly if it means they are assigned an EV. This is because every city department has sustainability goals and, by being assigned and using an EV, it shows that they are taking positive steps to meet the benchmarks.