The Fighting Irish Went Electric First: How Notre Dame’s Campus Fleet Went Green Between 2008 and 2012
Long before campuses competed over EV charging networks, Notre Dame was asking a practical question: Which cleaner vehicles could do the work the university actually needed?
The answer came in stages. First, the university tested a hybrid. Then it studied a battery-electric car and charging equipment. Finally, it put small electric vans to work on campus maintenance routes. By 2012, Notre Dame was also bringing electric vehicles into public view through a sustainable-transportation event.
As Green Living Guy Seth Leitman sees it, the leadership here is not about claiming Notre Dame had solved fleet electrification. It is about a more useful example: test, learn, match vehicles to real jobs, and build experience before scaling up.
2007’s Prius test set the tone for Notre Dame’s electric vehicle fleet and sustainable transportation future
The story begins just before the 2008–2012 period. Notre Dame Magazine’s archival article, published in November 2008, looked back at the university’s January 2007 arrival of a Toyota Prius. The car had taken nine months to obtain. The university described it as an experiment in moving toward a more efficient motor pool.
Transportation Services manager Marty Ogren gave a refreshingly direct assessment: “It’s not a bad small car.”
The university tested the Prius for ordinary business travel. That made sense for a campus motor pool: short trips, frequent stops, and vehicles shared by people traveling on university business. Ogren estimated the car could save $700 to $1,000 in fuel costs each year. He also said a driver could expect about 50 miles per gallon on a trip to Chicago, even with time spent in city traffic.
Just as important, the test produced a clear limitation. The Prius was not strong enough for the demands Notre Dame Security would place on its vehicles. So the university did not treat one positive result as proof that hybrids suited every job. It evaluated the car against different duties and kept the boundary visible.
That is a small but valuable lesson for any fleet manager: a vehicle can be a good fit for one route and the wrong tool for another.
The GEM car showed the value of an honest “not yet” from Notre Dame
The same Notre Dame Magazine article describes another early test. In March 2007, Ogren’s staff drove a GEM car. A small, low-speed electric neighborhood vehicle that could suit limited local trips.
Ogren concluded that the price needed to fall and the range needed to improve before such a vehicle could handle work in maintenance, parking, or food services. In other words, Notre Dame was interested in electric transport, but it was not going to buy a vehicle simply to make a green statement.
That verdict makes the next steps more meaningful. Four years later, the university would put electric utility vans into service for campus maintenance. The change was not a reversal. It was the result of a test-and-verify approach: wait until the vehicle and the job make sense together.
In 2010, Notre Dame tested the car and the charger
In October 2010, Notre Dame moved from hybrid testing to a battery-electric pilot. Mitsubishi Motors North America loaned the university an i-MiEV for several months. Eaton provided charging stations. The university said it would use the project to assess whether electric vehicles could join the campus fleet.
The i-MiEV was a compact four-seat electric car. Notre Dame’s announcement described a range of up to 100 miles on a charge. It also said the vehicle’s carbon footprint was 70% lower than that of a gasoline-powered mini automobile.
The pilot paired a vehicle with charging equipment from the start. That matters. A fleet cannot evaluate an EV properly without considering where it charges, how long it takes, and whether the daily schedule works around it.
Notre Dame also planned to show the i-MiEV and charging stations on the Irish Green during the Pitt football weekend, alongside the pep rally and tailgating. That public demonstration put the technology in a familiar campus setting, rather than limiting it to a facilities meeting or a technical report.
Executive Vice President John Affleck-Graves said the project would help the university understand EV potential as it worked to reduce energy use and its campus carbon footprint. Eaton’s Jerry Whitaker, meanwhile, emphasized that charging infrastructure could help enable broader EV adoption.
The partnership model is worth noting. Mitsubishi loaned a vehicle for evaluation, and Eaton supplied charging equipment. Notre Dame could learn before committing to a large purchase. For campuses and businesses weighing a fleet transition today, pilot programs and supplier partnerships can still provide a lower-risk way to learn.
By 2011, electric vans had a job to do
In November 2011, Notre Dame announced two EVC1000 electric vans from Vantage Vehicle International. These compact utility vehicles replaced two conventional pickups used by Building Systems engineers for maintenance visits around campus.
The vans were designed for a specific duty cycle, not every possible trip. They had a maximum speed of 25 mph and could travel up to 40 miles per charge. A full charge took four to six hours. For short campus maintenance loops, those limits were part of the fit.
Utilities Director Paul Kempf explained the choice: “We were looking for a practical vehicle that would work well for general maintenance trips around campus.” He added that the vans cost less than some other electric vehicles and that their top speed suited on-campus use.
This is right-sizing in practice. A maintenance team does not need highway speed or long-distance range for every campus visit. A slower, purpose-built vehicle can meet the mission while replacing a gasoline-powered pickup on the routes it can handle.
The university’s broader fleet was also evolving. By the time the vans were reported, Notre Dame listed 11 hybrids and four Smart Cars, along with a low-emission vehicle preferred-parking program and a Zipcar partnership. The vans were not a standalone gesture. They joined a collection of transportation choices that also included car-sharing, biking, transit, and carpooling.
In 2012, electric mobility became a public conversation at Notre Dame
Notre Dame continued the story with a sustainable-transportation Green Summit in February 2012. The event invited the campus community to examine technologies and discuss transportation challenges. Attendees could see a Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan Leaf, while Eaton brought electric vehicles and a charging station. Notre Dame’s announcement described the summit and its vehicle displays.
The public-facing element matters. People understand a technology differently when they can see the vehicle, ask questions, and connect it to daily routines. A display does not prove that every visitor changed their mind. But it creates a useful opportunity for conversation, and puts practical examples in front of a community.
For a broader look at how transportation choices connect to emissions and everyday decisions, explore Green Living Guy’s sustainability coverage.
What campus and business leaders can learn
Notre Dame’s record from 2007 through 2012 offers a straightforward playbook:
- Test before buying at scale. A loaned EV and a supplier partnership can help answer operational questions early.
- Record the limitations as well as the wins. The Prius did not suit Security’s needs. That information made the experiment more useful.
- Match the vehicle to the route. A 25-mph electric van can be a sensible maintenance vehicle when the work happens around campus.
- Plan charging alongside vehicle use. Infrastructure was part of Notre Dame’s 2010 pilot, not an afterthought.
- Make the technology visible. The planned football-weekend demonstration and the 2012 summit brought EVs into public view.
- Improve efficiency along the way. Hybrids, Smart Cars, car-sharing, biking, transit, and electric vans formed a progression, not a single all-or-nothing leap.
As Seth Leitman often emphasizes in discussions of clean transportation, good sustainability decisions start with the actual job, the actual energy use, and the available options. Notre Dame’s early fleet work reflects that practical mindset. It did not electrify everything at once. Instead, it tested, documented, partnered, and expanded where the evidence supported it.
The result was modest in scale, but significant as institutional learning. One Prius, one GEM-car evaluation, a loaned i-MiEV, charging equipment, and two utility vans each added a piece of experience. That is how a campus builds the knowledge to make its next decision better.
Acknowledgments: Thank you to Notre Dame Magazine and the University of Notre Dame’s Campus Sustainability team for preserving these public archives. We also recognize Eaton, Mitsubishi Motors North America, and Vantage Vehicle International for the collaborations documented in this early fleet history.
