Autoblog

What's up with California's lawmakers? First, they pass legislation that makes it illegal to use cell phones while driving, yet texting while behind the wheel is still legal (thankfully rectified earlier this week). Now they get caught with unchecked, taxpayer-reimbursed, unlimited-use gas cards...while driving state-issued vehicles! The "gas cards" are supposed to be used for fuel, but they can also be used for incidental purchases such as snacks or drinks. The lawmakers never see the bills as they are sent directly to the Senate and Assembly rules committees for payment. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the golden state of California is unique with this program -- in most other states (not facing $15 billion budget deficits) lawmakers must submit expense forms for gas. Yeah, just like the rest of us do...

[Source: AOL Autos]

A number of factors are conspiring to create a situation that recently would have been unthinkable: the United States as a supplier of gasoline to world markets. According to Booz & Company, those factors are the rise of biofuels in the West, the introduction of plug-in electric and other alternative fuel vehicles, and the growth of the really cheap car, like the Tata Nano.

The United States imports oil to feed its gasoline habit, but the U.S. has refining capacity that developing nations cannot match. The U.S. is also lowering its reliance on traditional gasoline due to the price, states' mandates on switching to biofuels, and the dawn of mass market alternative fuel vehicles. This adds up to the United States importing oil, and then selling it to nations like India and China to feed their larger appetites for gasoline.

In the middle of all of this are the refineries, who made predictions for today's business plans two decades ago. Sure, no one is crying for them -- they need extra pages to include the zeros on their profit statements -- but they have to start figuring out who's going to need which products and how they are going to deliver them. And, by refining company standards, they need to do it quickly, which is a method of operation they aren't well versed in.

[Source: Green Car Congress via Kicking Tires; Photo CC 2.0 - National Archives]

Don't like the weather? Just wait, it'll change. Don't like gas prices? Just wait, they'll change, too. But if the weather brings a hurricane, some experts say gas prices could hit as high as $6 a gallon.

NOAA has predicted as many as nine named storms this season, with five of those possibly reaching major status. One expert in a CNN story says that a typical hurricane will shut down an off-shore oil rig and interrupt supply lines for as long as two weeks. If even one of those damages Gulf of Mexico drilling rigs, you can bet the crude markets will go nuts, and today's black gold and $4/gallon gas will seem like a bargain.

The good news? Hurricane season ends Nov. 30. If we make it to December with no major hurricanes, we might see oil and gas prices fall. Maybe.

[Sources: CNN, NOAA]

In a move certain to generate both controversy and publicity, a new and used car dealer in Butler, Missouri, is offering his customers a choice between two sales incentives with their vehicle purchase: $250 in gasoline or a free semi-automatic handgun.

"We got high gas prices, theft, carjackings, innocent people getting hurt," Walter Moore, from Max Motors, told KMBC-TV. It seems the resourceful dealer is offering car buyers a solution for it all -- and the gun is proving to be the popular choice with 80 percent of his customers choosing the firearm over free fuel. As expected, not everyone is happy. Considering most of his customers already own guns, Moore doesn't understand why people's feathers are getting all ruffled. Customers who choose the semi-auto pistol over the gas are handed a certificate that must be redeemed, after the requisite forms and background check are complete, at a local gun shop. This, of course, keeps the local police much happier. Thanks for the tip, mccreery!

[Source: KMBC-TV]

Machines are only as smart as their creators, which doesn't say much about gas pump manufacturers in the mid-1990s. A report from Washington reveals that at least 12 gas stations in the state are using pumps not 13 years old that are unable to display and calculate a price of gas higher than $3.99 9/10 per gallon. These pumps were produced before everything went digital and you could simply slide your AmEx into the little slot to pay for your premium petrol. They use a mechanical computer with gears to calculate the price of gas, and the cost of retrofitting them to account for the current reality of $4+/gallon gasoline amounts to $8,500 in upgrades according to one station owner, if he could even find the parts since they're all on back order.

Just like computer engineers couldn't imagine that their little machines would last until Y2K, the mechanical engineers who designed these pumps back in 1995 when gas was the equivalent of $1.60/gallon apparently couldn't imagine a day in 2008 when dead dino juice would be this expensive. Unfortunately for customers who patron stations with this antiquated equipment, they aren't getting their fuel for the price advertised on the pump. Rather, the state's Weights and Measures program is giving these businesses extra time to upgrade or replace their pumps as long as the actual price of gas is clearly displayed and customers get an explanation of what's going. For now they're doing it the old fashioned way, by multiplying the gallons pumped by the price on the sign. Thanks for the tip, bojac!

[Source: Seattlepi via Fashion Funky]

Oil company advertising is apparently much more effective than we had originally thought. As gasoline prices creep up towards $4.00 per gallon (already there in Southern California), consumers are still more likely to purchase fuel based on brand over price.

According to NPD Group analyst David Portalatin, consumers cite "product performance" as their justification for buying one particular brand over another. It's all due to very effective branding and marketing, cites Portalatin. (We'd have to agree, as we've yet to meet anyone who can discern a difference between a tank of Chevron or Costco fuel from the driver's seat.) Now that the massive oil mergers are behind them, the petroleum giants are focusing on selling "quality" to differentiate themselves from the discount fuel stations. As consumers continue to blindly drive towards big brand gasoline, their efforts are apparently working -- regardless of cost. Let's just hope Starbucks doesn't catch wind of this trend and try a new source of revenue...

[Source Advertising Age, Photo by David McNew, Getty Images]

In Dallas, a businessman has spent half a million dollars to install nine pumps that dispense E85, E10, and biodiesel. The catch: the businessman is a HUMMER dealer, and the pumps are next to his dealership. The station is called Classic Clean Fuels, and it is intended to make a statement for next year's H2 and H2 SUT, which will be the first production models to be Flex-fuel capable.

You won't need to drive a HUMMER to get E85 at the station. The pumps are open to the public, a first for a dealer-owned gas station. By 2010, GM has said all HUMMERs will be biofuel-capable. GM plans to market 15 Flexfuel models next year, but only one percent of the country's service stations sell E85. GM is using that as an opportunity to open the public's (and dealers') minds to putting alternative fuel stations in alternative places.

Said GM's Larry Burns, "Down the road we may even want to consider hydrogen dispensers at dealerships."

[Source: Auto News, sub req'd]

In a sign that the high cost of gasoline has finally struck a central nerve, car shoppers today are reportedly more concerned about fuel economy than they are about the brand of vehicle when shopping for a new car. In addition, consumers want more government control over fuel economy. This startling news, and a reversal of consumer trends two years ago, is the result of a new AAA survey which studied consumers' attitudes towards fuel prices.

It appears that consumers were getting used to the cyclic fluctuations of gas prices. Prices shot up based on market conditions, supply and demand, and season increases. However, they always seemed to drop back to more palatable levels... at least they used to. Today, according to leading economists, consumers are finally catching-on to the idea that $4 a gallon gas might be the norm. This reality-check of fuel costs will lead to downsizing, and a focus on vehicle efficiency. Have we finally found the Achilles heel of the SUV?

[Source: The Detroit News, photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty]

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel

While assorted activists, politicians and random individuals carry on about the spectres of global warming, imported oil, CO₂ emissions and other issues that combine to create timetable-free doomsday scenarios, there are people working on potential solutions that do not involve us driving around four-wheeled Segway scooters. That's right: the "dreaded" internal combustion engine might yet provide the answer -- or at least an answer. And because Lotus is the entity searching for the answer in this particular case, the end result might not only be green -- it looks ridiculously fun, too.

The car you see here is the Geneva-bound Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel concept, the successor to 2006's Exige 265E, which made 265 horses running on E85. The 270E goes a step further. Not only can it run on gasoline or ethanol, it achieves its peak output -- 270 horsepower and 184 lb-ft -- on methanol, hence the Tri-Fuel label. Incidentally, that power figure is the highest yet for an Exige coming out of Hethel. Even more interesting, however, is Lotus' research into producing carbon-neutral synthetic methanol. You can read about it in detail after the jump, but in summary, the process involves using atmospheric CO₂ and reacting it with hydrogen created via renewable electrical power to create methanol. Liquid methanol could be transported and distributed much in the same way gasoline is now, making for a feasible infrastructure if the idea were to take hold somewhere down the line.

Lotus is also hunting for solutions involving EVs, as well as optimizing the traditional gasoline-powered ICE through its Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Group. One must admit, however, that the idea of a sustainable, synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel driving internal combustion engines with the same levels of power we currently enjoy is the equivalent of having your cake and eating it. Press on, Lotus.


[Source: Lotus via AutoblogGreen]

Jon Markman at MSN Money doesn't hold back when he says "Corn-based ethanol production is sure to go down as one of the greatest mistakes ever in U.S. energy policy." It's even more provoking when he writes "replacing fossil fuels with corn-based ethanol would double greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades. The studies show that switchgrass, an alternative to ethanol that's more weed than plant, would boost emissions by 50%."

The problem isn't with the cars, the problem is with what it takes to grow the biofuel in the first place. Clearing the land, harvesting, and refining the crops, plus the loss of forest and wild lands and habitats, amounts to creating a carbon footprint worse than fossil fuels. According to the Science article which, admittedly, posits an extreme scenario, it would take 423 years to even out the carbon debt if Indonesia's peat lands were converted to palm oil fields.

The research is starting to give some people pause, such as the folks at the European Union who declared they wanted ten-percent of the block's transport fuel to come from plants. And Joe Fargione of the U.S. Nature Conservancy asks, "Is it worth it? ...[S]urprisingly the answer is 'no'. These natural areas store a lot of carbon, so converting them to crops results in tons of carbon emitted into the atmosphere."

Thanks for the tip, Zo!

[Source: MSN Money]