National Petroleum News (NPN) has been the independent voice of the petroleum industry since 1909 as the opposition to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. So, motor fuels marketing and retail is not just a sideline for us, it’s our core competency.
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FULLSERVICE Test driving the alternative “future” power plants included hydrogen fuel cell, E85 hybrid, plug-in hybrid electric, and diesels with SCR emission technology. The vehicles were provided by General Motors, Mercedes, Honda and Toyota and includ- ed the much talked about Chevy Volt. I have to admit to being a bit less than impressed. The electric and fuel cell offerings were perhaps the most disap- I pointing in the sense that I expected more performance. An electric motor (used in both technologies) provides smooth direct-drive power and loads of torque but exciting performance was lacking in all of the offerings except for a Chevy fuel cell SUV. This was due to the test vehicles generally having fairly low horsepower motors. The vehicles performed adequately, but no tire smoking was to be found. Also, there was little opportunity to get the vehicles out on the highway where the direct drive aspects would likely have shined and where the range/effi- ciency limitations of the electrics would have been more apparent. Hydrogen fuel cell technology has come a long way and is becom- ing very vehicle friendly though the vehicle and fueling infrastructure costs are still prohibitively high. Pure electric-only vehicles are limited by range and infrastructure. They would be great for urban dwellers except for the issue of street parking. In suburban settings they might handle 90 percent of driving needs fine but require an alternative for that other 10 percent. PHEVs like the Volt have a support gasoline engine but they still cost more than comparable high efficiency gasoline vehicles and are not neces- sarily that much more efficient if the gasoline engine kicks in. Both PHEV and pure electric vehicles raise issues relative to the current electric grid that already suffers brownouts during peak usage periods without meeting the needs of general transportation. The E85-fueled Buick Regal turbo was specially tuned to the fuel and provided impressive performance. If I lived in downstate Illinois instead of the Chicago metropolitan area it would be an option to con- sider as the fueling infrastructure would likely support the decision. I did not try the diesel offerings as I have previously driven diesels from BMW and Volkswagen. For my money this is the most practical alternative fuel offering, along with compressed natural gas and further development into high efficiency conventional gasoline internal com- bustion engines. That’s not because of an emotional attachment to the past, but because of performance (power and mileage/environmental) and the ability to use the current infrastructure without much modi- fication. Some percentage of pure electric and PHEV along with E85 hybrids could fill that out as well where practical. n Keith Reid EDITOR-IN-CHIEF kreid@m2media360.com 4 MAY/JUNE 2011 NPN Magazine n www.npnweb.com RECENTLY HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO DRIVE A RANGE OF ALTERNATIVE FUELED vehicles at the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America Spring Convention held in Dana Point, Calif. The THE SOURCE FOR PETROLEUM AND CONVENIENCE MARKETERS EDITORIAL OFFICE 1030 W. 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