by Joanne Ivancic (Advanced Biofuels USA)  Conspicuous by their absence from the Washington Auto Show was the US Department of Energy (except for a brief press conference by Energy Secretary Chu at noon on Thursday) and its latest BILLION dollar protégées, Tesla Motors($465 million loan agreement closed on January 21, 2010)  and  Fisker Automotive (conditional $529 million loan).  With the Electric Drive Transporation Association holding its conference and annual meeting in conjunction with the show, the emphasis was on electric drive cars.  You would think that the pioneering luxury electric car manufacturers would be displaying their products being financed by the US government.   Fisker plans on participating in auto shows in Monaco/Geneva and Paris.  According to Fisker’s Silvia Lopez, the only US show this season will be in Chicago due to a combination of financial and market focus considerations.  Besides, they only have two vehicles for US display. 

 

 

 

Other taxpayer-supported automotive companies showed up at the DC Auto Show.  General Motors was doing their best to show the members of Congress, their staff, media, industry leaders and the public what they are accomplishing with taxpayers’ funds.  Nissan showed off their Leaf, the winner of the Green Car Journal’s Green Car Vision Award, and their new $1.4 BILLION loan from DOE to further Nissan’s electric car development.

 But not even a table with literature for DOE, Tesla or Fisker.

The Advanced Technology Superhighway, 65,000 square feet of displays emphasized electric car offerings  such as the Leaf and the itty bitty THINK City car which at more than $30,000 each thinks it is going to compete effectively with the lux eco boosted Ford Taurus SHO starting at $37,770, getting 25 mpg highway and able to carry groceries and bicycles in its trunk.  Not to mention competing with the $13,320 Ford Fiesta that gets 40 mpg highway, has room for people in the back seat and stuff in the trunk.

 

If you watched closely and conducted dispassionate comparisons, it is clear that consumers still get more bang for their buck with internal combustion and diesel powered vehicles.  And that improvements in engine efficiencies which take advantage of the benefits of biofuels such as ethanol, promise even more environmentally friendly improvements in the very near future.

 

Some applications, such as postal delivery fleets that drive limited miles and return to the same place at night for refueling make electrifying sense.  But spending what the Electrification Coalition estimates as $124 BILLION of taxpayers and rate-payers money to build an infrastructure to accommodate general  use of electric cars just doesn’t make sense today. 

 

At the SAE International conference (of “experts in designing, building, maintaining and operating self-propelled vehicles for use on land or sea, in air or space”) held in conjunction with the DC Auto Show, the continued need for liquid transportation fuels was expressed repeatedly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Presentations at the conference and public press conferences on the show floor made it clear that electric vehicles will comprise not more than 10% of the US market for the next 50 years or so.  Similarly, liquid-fuel powered vehicles will also predominate in the rest of the world.

 

National Security was on the mind of Retired General Wesley Clark of Growth Energy as he briefly lectured on Policy Day about the hidden cost of imported oil and the crucial importance of growing our own.  Not one to present a problem of “$300 BILLION/year being sucked out of the American economy,” without presenting a solution, General Clark helped Kent Niederhofer, President of Ricardo, Inc., introduce their new highly fuel-efficient, low emissions, flex-fuel engine technology.

 

Novozymes demonstrated what the future liquid-fuel-powered world will look like with a “government waste” powered vehicle on display and others available on Policy Day for test drives.  Highlighting their collaboration with Fiberight which produced the ethanol for the vehicles from paper waste procured from the federal government, Novozymes and Fiberight represented the advanced biofuels industry at the show.   As Adam Monroe, President of Novozymes North America noted, this was a first for this enzyme company–to be exhibiting at an auto show.

Novozymes emphasized that advanced biofuels can deliver up to 90 percent CO2 emission reduction compared to gasoline and are the most cost-efficient way of reducing CO2 in the transport sector.  In 2009, the deployoment of Novozymes’ technologies in all industries resulted in the reduction of CO2 emissions totaling approximately 27 million tons–the equivalent of taking 7 million cars off the road.

Developments are racing along at such a pace, we expect that Novozymes will prove to be a pioneer again, with many more advanced biofuels companies explaining their role in powering “self-propelled vehicles for use on land or sea, in air or space” at future auto shows and end-users’ events around the country and the world.

 This work is essential to helping people visualize and test drive the undeniable future, to assuage their fears and to provide opportunities for real-life, hands-on experiences alongside the prototypes of the electric future.   READ MORE 

 

 

Related posts:

1. Washington DC Auto Show Includes Biofuels Section
2. Vehicles Running E85 Corn Ethanol Have 30 Percent Lower CO2 Emissions than the All-Electric Tesla Roadster, Study Finds
3. Environmental Warning over Electric Cars
4. Got Government Waste? Novozymes Demos Car Running on Biofuels Made from Government Scrap Paper
5. Why Does the Electrification Coalition Want $124 Billion of Your Tax Dollars to Charge Electric Cars?