Fuel Prices Starting to Hurt

Read the complete article in Fleet Owner magazine here:
http://fleetowner.com/news/topstory/high_fuel_price_quarter_report_050305/

Bottom line is, the fuel crisis is not slowing down and not going to be over any time soon.

Sad to say, most commercial fleets are relying on fuel surcharge pass throughs. This is fine (up to a point) when you can do business this way. What about small businesses, service businesses, school districts, etc. who can't just pass the cost on?

In my view there's a lot of technology which isn't being used, not even starting to be used yet. In my own business of selling GPS tracking units I have yet to find a business who did not save 10 or 15% in fuel costs .. once they make the move. People just need to want to save to get started.

Now what about vehicles themselves? Ever notice how many miles a vehicle for say a garage door service company travels in a day? 100 miles is a big day, believe me. Seems like an ideal candidate for a high-mileage hybrid vehicle or even a pure electric.

Pure electric, everyone 'knows' (thanks to a government leadership that is incestuously tied to 'big oil) that electric vehicles are too costly, too heavy, too limited in range and on and on.
Well that just isn't necessarily so. Think about a school bus as an example. 100 to 150 miles a day, relatively low speeds, used only a few hours a day and not even 12 months per year. And a chassis based on a truck that can carry tons of weight. Even a big flat roof to carry solar cells to recharge partially over the course of a day. The entire bus industry is scrambling to deal with bio-diesel fuel, reducing idling and pollution and wondering how the new low-sulphur 2007 engines.

What does it take for someone to realize that these problems can all be made to go away? I guess we just love having problems.

Dave
www.satviz.com