On Alternate Fuel Regulations

The EPACT regulations of the early 1990’s were a major attempt by the Department of Energy to encourage, if not direct, adoption of alternate fuel sources. Impacted business sectors were required to purchase and run alternate fuel vehicles if they fell within certain parameters. Enter Dan, stage left. I was in natural gas utility fleet management, one of the most stringently impacted private business sectors. The act required that if we were to run more than 19 light-duty units in our regional metropolitan statistical area, and if they could be centrally fueled, a certain percentage of them had to be alternate fuel capable. Dependent on the year in question you were also required to prove that you were running this equipment on alternate fuel. Sounds good on paper, but in application it left things to be desired.

You see, alternate fuels are fuels of scale. Equipment and infrastructure add to your overheads and in some cases significantly. Let’s examine compressed natural gas.

When the legislation came out, a typical industry work-truck would have cost the average fleet buyer let’s say $15-18K ready to roll. The refit to CNG was another $8-10K or so. So you now had a $28K service truck, but you still had no way to fuel it. Smaller compressors were marketed which had a service life of about ½ the expected lifespan of the truck, could fill two units or so at a time (overnight), and cost $4-6K. Add all that up and you have a $34K cap cost for a truck to displace an $18K conventional truck.

If you were building a lot of these, you could improve on the per-truck price and also spring for bigger infrastructure to fuel them. This would tighten up the costs some, but as used CNG vehicles had virtually no resale value, and at that time the cost-of-fuel differential was virtually non-existent, it was a significant losing proposition. You would have paid more for the equipment and the privilege to run it, lost money on resale and not saved money while you ran it.

Out of this mandate grew several industry solutions: Exchanges where alternate fuel credits were sold and traded; revised deployment to avoid overnights on company property; and limiting ownership of the type of equipment which fell under this requirement. In essence, the fleet industry was forced to come up with alternatives to alternative fuel, as running it wasn’t financially feasible.

That was then, this is now. Fleet operators of all industries are now jumping on alternate fuel, talking about it enthusiastically, looking for answers and partners with whom to share infrastructure. So what has changed? Alt fuel is now becoming significantly cheaper than the conventional fuels it is displacing, so in effect in now “pays” to run it. So simple market economics both limited alt-fuel acceptance and spurred interest in it. It would appear that the free market has successfully steered acceptance in an area where regulations alone couldn't.  

Automotive Technology vs. Soul

I recently acquired a new commuter-car. It is a nothing-special Kia. I got it on the cheap because it had a few issues, but none that really scared me. The most recent (and hopefully final) preexisting issue I decided deal with was a lit Check-Engine light. The little car ran fine, so again, I had no great phobias about tearing into it to get it resolved.

The scanner produced a pretty elaborate string of codes associated with the Idle Air Control (IAC) valve. The series of codes was unusual in that it showed faults for both windings on the device and both directions of operation. A fairly rigorous diagnostic routine followed which led me to the fact the actual valve is damaged (electrically) and needed to be replaced. A trip to the salvage yard secured the part I needed and I installed it this AM. The car cooperated and it runs correctly, but I realized as I was turning wrenches that this may only lead me to another fault as the diagnostic codes can only tell you what isn’t happening, not why it isn’t happening. So in effect, on cars of this era I was repairing you either throw parts at them until all the codes go away or you use your hard-earned experience and reasoning ability to hit it right the first time.

This put me into reminiscing mode. Like several of my generation I cut my teeth on big V-8’s, 4-barrel carburetors and dual exhaust. Several came and went in my early motoring years; coupes, sedans, pickup trucks and yes, even station wagons- an automotive comfort-food that chased me into the new millennium. In the beginning,  life was simple; if your idle speed was off (high/low) you likely had one of two things happening – the timing shifted (worn points likely) or you had a vacuum leak. Today you are dealing with a computer that adjusts these settings on the fly and utilizes input from any number of sensors to do so. Any of these sensors can make the car misbehave, and if they aren’t what’s going bad the actual computer or wiring that connects all these devices is.

Cars today are more efficient, more powerful, more drivable and more user-friendly that the old ones – except when they aren’t and then they really aren’t. But more to the point, all of my old hotrods had a disposition. Each had personality, weather and conditions they liked and those they didn’t. I recall this as each car alternately endeared itself to me or angered me, depending on circumstance. It was a relationship. New cars, not so much. You stick the key in and go – or not. When you buy, you shop features, much like buying a kitchen appliance – “do you need a frother with that?” Don’t get me wrong-I am at the point in life where dependable is important and many of these new cars have proven very fun to drive; they can be fast, handle well and rake down 40 MPG.

Ultimately, cars reflect our culture. No manufacturer intentionally goes to market with a vehicle that they don’t believe the public wants, and so I conclude that we are where we are at today due to a composite of the public’s perceived needs and various regulatory demands. The result? Incredible efficiencies and design technologies, but the loss of many of the organic aspects of the art of automotive sciences. I am ambivalent as I see everything is squeaky clean, but I carry a gut feeling that the baby may have been thrown out with the bathwater.

I am interested in what some thoughts are on this topic.   

Fuel efficiency through telematics - Where do you stand?

Years back, prior to GPS being standard in fleet circles, Fleet Managers were forced to budget against historical consumption. You knew there was waste, some operators more abusive than others, but really in spite of whatever policies you could dream up you couldn’t control an operator’s behavior after he or she pulled out of the lot in the morning. So you ran with the prior numbers and didn’t look back.

In my own experience comparison of the historical data and GPS deployed data was dramatic. My company light truck gas mileage had been in the 7-8 MPG range/ class 7 trucks in the 3-4 MPG range. These trucks made amazing strides in efficiency between 2006 and 2007, many 25% or better. No doubt a small part of this savings was attributable to induction of newer equipment, but not much. Routine annual inventory replacement amounted to about 10-12% gross inventory and had for several years, so increases from these changes would have been evolutionary. What made the most change was deployment of diagnostic-capable vehicle GPS across our work-truck inventory in late 2006.

Even prior to developing policy based on required usage patterns, the general knowledge that we could see what the truck was doing at any time reduced idle-time, eliminated erroneous trips, allowed superior safety monitoring and efficient dispatching due to location reporting. The proverbial win-win. Workforce acceptance of the program was, as you would expect, rocky for the first couple of years. Resentment about “big brother keeping dibs on me” was voiced by a small percentage of the workforce. This soon died off. As we told some of the protesters at that time, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Eventually monitored automotive GPS became accepted.

And today many organizations are putting their fleet operations on the half-shell, scouring for additional operating efficiencies wherever they can be gleaned. Steered by shareholder interests, operational safety and maintenance management issues, telematics in company vehicles seem to be here to stay. And so I wonder; what are some thoughts out there on telematics in business deployment?