Fleet improvements

Walmart and Daimler Trucks North America develop hybrid-electric Cascadia^®

In addition to the numerous fleet innovations we have described in prior reports, we collaborated with Daimler Trucks North America LLC (DTNA) to build a hybrid-electric Freightliner Cascadia^®. This truck features a parallel hybrid system based on an electrically-driven second drive axle. It also marks the beginning of a long-term strategic partnership with DTNA to develop innovative, sustainable technologies.

U.K.: Over the past year, our ASDA operations have continued to implement initiatives to drive a significant reduction in road miles and support the development of technology to improve the fuel efficiency of its fleet. Since 2005, we have successfully reduced our transport-related carbon emissions by 42 percent (measured by volume of cases shipped*) in the U.K. Among our most successful initiatives has been the wide-scale roll out of our bespoke double-deck trailer fleet, utilized for both traditional trunk activity and direct delivery to more than 140 stores. These new trailers will deliver an estimated savings of 3.6 million miles annually, while reducing fuel consumption by 1.8 million liters per year

Japan: Walmart Japan has already outpaced its goal of improving fleet efficiency by 25 percent by 2012, using a 2006 baseline. We showed marked improvement in overall load efficiency through the introduction of mixed delivery across different merchandise categories and the optimization of store delivery schedule in 2010, enabling us to improve fleet efficiency by 33.5 percent to date.

^*ASDA calculates its fleet efficiency by including outbound freight on both trucks and rail

U.S.: Walmart U.S. continues to drive toward its goal of doubling fleet efficiency, realizing a 65 percent improvement in 2010 over our 2005 baseline. Over the past two years, we replaced nearly two-thirds of our fleet with more efficient tractors. Our investments also included the purchase of 3,000 skirted trailers, which will drive fleet efficiency. In 2010, we delivered 57 million more cases, while driving 49 million fewer miles. This equates to avoiding almost 40,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions, which is the equivalent of taking 7,600 cars off the road.