Production of Non-Gas Vehicles Shifts Into High Gear : Auto industry: Some experts predict that 2.5 million cars, vans and trucks powered by alternative fuel will be on American roads by the end of the decade.
Facing serious air pollution, America is trying to wean its cars from gasoline. The transition to a cleaner motor fuel won’t be quick, but there are signs that gasoline’s grip is loosening.
For example, President Bush marked the government’s purchase of hundreds of alternative-fuel vehicles by taking a spin around the White House driveway last week in a van powered by compressed natural gas.
Auto makers are beginning to produce not only more such vehicles but also a limited number of cars, vans and small trucks that run on methanol. And within a few years, auto industry officials say, electric cars will come purring out of showrooms.
Alternative-fuel technology “is here today, and it’s ready to roll,” says Claudia Baker, an executive of the Energy Commission in California, a state that has vigorously pushed substitute motor fuels to help ease its severe air pollution.
Some energy experts and environmentalists predict that more than 2.5 million vehicles powered by fuels other than gasoline will be on American roads by the end of the decade.
California will require that as many as 40,000 electric-powered cars be sold annually in the state by 1998 and five times that by the year 2003. Other states, including New York, are on the verge of enacting similar requirements.
New federal clean-air rules also call for 150,000 “clean-fuel” vehicles to be sold annually in California--and possibly other states--by 1996 and twice that by 1998. In addition, federal law calls for phasing in alternative-fuel fleet vehicles in areas with the worst air pollution. At least six states already have incentives or requirements to shift operators of taxicabs, delivery trucks and other fleets away from gasoline or diesel fuel.
In other signs of the future:
* In Jeffrey Seisler’s back yard outside Washington, there’s a “home fueling appliance” that uses the same natural gas which heats his home to refuel the car he drives to work each day.
* In Sacramento, a Shell service station, in a joint program with Pacific Gas & Electric, offers not only gasoline but also compressed natural gas. It is among 14 natural-gas outlets opened by PG&E;, primarily for fleet-owned vehicles, in Northern California.
* As many as 2,000 methanol-powered Chevrolet Lumina sedans will be shipped for sale in California later this year. General Motors also says it plans to have an electric-powered passenger car in showrooms in about three years.
* The federal government this year will receive 3,125 vans and small trucks that run on compressed natural gas or methanol and will order 5,000 more next year. The government hopes that in five years half the 70,000 vehicles it expects to buy annually will be non-gasoline-powered.
Gasoline-powered cars and trucks are the single largest source of air pollution, emitting smog-forming hydrocarbons and toxic chemicals as well as the principal “greenhouse” gas, carbon dioxide. Most alternative fuels produce significantly less pollution from vehicles, although in some cases their production may still have environmental drawbacks that contribute to global warming.
Generally, the widespread use of alternative-fuel vehicles also would sharply reduce America’s dependence on petroleum, since two-thirds of the 17 million barrels of oil consumed each day goes to transportation.
“While (the gasoline-driven) vehicle once provided cheap, nearly unlimited mobility, today it is the cause of air pollution, potential climate instability and a nationwide addiction to ever greater oil imports,” says Deborah Gordon, an automotive fuels expert for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental advocacy group.
Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, predicts that “gasoline will be the dominant fuel of the future just as it has been in the past.” But he also says that gasoline of the future is likely to be cleaner and that other fuels “will have a niche in the marketplace.”
