Just over a year ago, Google Sydney welcomed two Mitsubitshi i-MiEVs to our offices. Not only did we think these would be a great way for us to get around, these electric cars are also a good example of innovation and engineering coming together to help the environment.
The answer came from our engineering director Alan Noble who suggested giving 'points' to staff who commuted to work in a sustainable fashion, allowing them to be cashed in for business or personal use of the cars. The idea is by that rewarding environmentally-friendly methods of getting to work, we can amplify the green benefits of having these cars.
Google engineers have use of what’s known as “20% time”, where we can devote one-fifth of our working day or week to a Google-related project of our choosing. Since I have a passion for green technology, I started work on building an in-house booking and management system.
Google Green Credits - or “GoCred” - is built entirely using Google products and technologies that are available to developers around the world, such as App Engine, mapreduce and the Google Chart API.
Today, the two cars are used and 'booked out' for more than 80% of any given week. Over the last year and a half, the cars have travelled a combined total of about 36,000km, and they are completely powered by accredited GreenPower. To relate that to real-world carbon savings, a standard taxi produces about 190g/km of carbon. We estimate that we’ve saved almost six tons of carbon emissions since their cars' introduction.
As a sign of their use, our electric cars are frequently dirty, covered in tree seeds, or even scratched and dented. The cars are booked out for business meetings, running errands and have even been used as wedding cars by yours truly!
Google engineers pride ourselves on being able to find technological solutions to real world problems. We hope the cars’ popularity and high usage levels, coupled with the carbon saved is a win for everyone.
Posted by Sam Thorogood, Software Engineer, Google Australia
