Alternative Fuels and Vehicles Expo

Has the fact that gasoline prices have dropped to near $2 a gallon dimmed the fleet spotlight on alternative fuels? “Not in our business,” said Koss. “The major companies that operate fleets still see the benefit of cost-effective vehicles, regardless of the price of gasoline.”

Volatile Market
GM’s Britta Gross said that it’s mandatory for GM—as well as all other manufacturers of transportation—to seek out and develop alternatives to gasoline, including hydrogen fuel cells, electric, hybrid, ethanol diesel and natural gas. “The predicament we’re in right now in the automobile industry is that we’re dealing with a volatile energy market, and volatile consumers who move very quickly between, ‘I’m willing to pay more for the vehicle, but I want cheap fuel,’ to ‘I’m willing to pay more for fuel, but I’m not willing to pay more for add-on technology.’


Some things have to stabilize, and that can only come with an effective energy policy,” which, she said, would allow the government “to take more control over the energy picture so that automakers can build the right vehicles in the three or four years it takes to do that.” Fuel prices that fluctuate up or down one or two dollars “just wreak havoc on planning and volume in this industry.” Manufacturers, she said, need at least three years to plan which products will get which type of powertrain.


“There is no one answer that we can get out on the market fast enough to solve all the problems by itself. The best thing we can do is for all alt-fuel groups to work together and quit picking at the warts—and there are warts on every type of alternative fuel solution right now—to go down the road toward moving away from petroleum products.”


The conference hosted dozens of speakers, dozens of seminars that ranged from “Fueling Groovy: The Promise of Propane,” to “Eco-Smackdown: Industry Addresses Untruths about Alternative Fuels.”