By Alleyn Harned | January 28, 2010 at 06:27 PM EST |

A policy discussion was held at the end of the day on Wednesday. The bottom line was that as a country, we need to dominate alternate fuel technologies and components in this challenging budget environment. Much of the discussion revolved anticipation for the President’s State of The Union in the evening. I’m sure participants were pleased that President Obama emphasized alternate fuels technology and research in his comments, and ...

By Alleyn Harned | January 28, 2010 at 06:56 PM EST

The featured speaker for the closing luncheon was Mike Jackson, Chairman and CEO of AutoNation, an organization of dealerships. Mike had some excellent comments on the consumer reality of advanced vehicle technologies and clean fuel alternatives. Namely, Mike advised that without the price driver of $4 gasoline, American consumers were going to keep going back to their gas guzzling clunkers. Mike spoke from experience and suggested that fuel cost needed ...

By Alleyn Harned | January 28, 2010 at 06:45 PM EST |

Many vehicle technology improvements go together and continue to advance the goal for more efficient vehicles. Fuel cell technology has the potential to move much larger vehicles than batteries can realistically move. Over the last 7 years, the fuel cell stack at Honda has become smaller and more powerful, loosing 4/5ths of its weight, and 3/4ths of its size to provide 100kw of power. Fuel Cell vehicles can have ...

By Alleyn Harned | January 28, 2010 at 06:40 PM EST

The consensus of many here is that “dumb charging” will be a liability to electric cars and to the electricity grid.

Great presentation from eTec on their massive deployment project. deploying multiple models of electric vehicle infrastructure in five states throughout the country, this program is going to impact 10,000 vehicles, and thousands of level 2 charging stations. Smart grid and demand response will be built in. This is one to ...

By Alleyn Harned | January 27, 2010 at 12:15 PM EST |

Senator Orrin Hatched opened today’s activities with a note that costs will downscale over time, and that the mass produced Model T came out at less than half of the cost of early models. EDTA continued a collaborative approach to enhance the electric vehicle industry in the US with a great variety of speakers. Former Governor Patak. Charged the industry with growing jobs in the US, and Theodore Craver ...

By Alleyn Harned | January 26, 2010 at 07:23 PM EST |

In some down time I visited the show floor for the Washington Auto Show to take a peek at some of their advance technology vehicles. It was a huge carpeted expanse of polished beautiful cars, and a special section showcasing alternative fuel vehicles and advanced vehicle technology. Numerous charge stations and an E85 advanced feedstock group had booths.

As an indication of expected future revenue, Toyota filled up much of ...

By Alleyn Harned | January 26, 2010 at 04:39 PM EST

The Joint Opening Session had an interesting and divergent mix of speakers including Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan, to David McCurdy of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Jack Basso of AASHTO, Roland Hwang, Senior Policy Analyst at NRDC, and Thomas Kuhn, President of the Edison Electric Institute. While this was a widely varied group, it was noteworthy that all speakers linked vehicle efficiency improvements with environmental results and with solutions ...

By Alleyn Harned | January 26, 2010 at 04:06 PM EST |

Frost & Sullivan led a workshop outlining their analysis of the potential market for electric vehicles and how we can identify new market opportunities for these alternate fuel vehicles. Carpooling, carsharing, and mobility service organizations are on the rise and the manner that drivers interact with 21 century environments is changing.

An agreement from the workshop was that utilities, OEMs, and battery/charger companies have a lot to gain from ...

By Alleyn Harned | January 26, 2010 at 11:00 AM EST

This morning began with funding opportunities workshop at the DC convention center. We heard from the venture capital investment and the government side of the alternative energy investment coin. The Recovery Act remains the main government funding stream through various sources until further climate or energy legislation is advanced. Private venture capital has additional opportunities with companies like SAIL who focus on cleantech or greentech investments that include alternate fuels. ...