AutoblogGreen's Sebastian Blanco writes up an in-depth report on last week's TechKnow Forum on Alternative Fuel Cars.
Excerpt:
The question that garnered the most responses was on how (or if)
customers' views on global warming will affect future car models. The
only question that made the panelists pause (not for long, though), was
what's in it for consumers with E85 fuel? There were a lot of people in
the audience who questioned the panel on the viability and green-ness
of hydrogen, which made the panelists get nicely defensive about this
energy carrier.
One thing that struck me during the Q&A,
when the presenters were a little bit looser, was when Larry Burns said
he worries about what would happen if the price of oil suddenly dropped
down to 10 or 15 dollars a barrel, a reality that would make all of the
work the automakers have done on automotive alternatives would lose its
value in the marketplace. Well, this worry shows the Achilles heel of
the way that the automakers approach biofuels and hydrogen and PHEV
(etc.), that is, doing alternative fuels research strictly from an
economic viewpoint. I'm not against working on some cool new technology
because you think it'll be a best seller, but c'mon. I know I'm not the
only one who sees environmental benefits as far outweighing the
potential cost savings?
Read the entire report
here.
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