Transcript: Eco-Fueler's "American Roadster"

This transcript is from a PodTech.net podcast at:
http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1682/eco-fuelers-american-roadster

Guest: John Green - Eco Fueler
Host: Matt Kelly - NextGear

Matt Kelly - NextGear
Hi, I'm Matt Kelly and this is the NextGear on PodTech.net. We're at the LA Auto show at the LA Convention Center and I am joined today by John Green, who is the chairman of the Board of Eco Fueler; it's a Company out of Eugene, Oregon. That's leading the way in alternative fuel vehicles. John, welcome to the program.

John Green - Eco Fueler
Well, thank you very much.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
Why don't you tell me about your vehicles, here in the back of us?

John Green - Eco Fueler
Basically, what we have is a compress of natural gas vehicle, it operates on natural gas, we get extremely high mileage and it's very, very clean. It's unusual because you can fill it up at home and what I tell people, the best explanation of the unit or the car is the fact; when you drive the car you're driving right now, a gasoline operated vehicle you're going to spend somewhere around $3 for a gallon of gas and you're going to go somewhere between 15-20 miles maybe 25 miles if you're lucky, on a gallon of gasoline. On a $3 worth of fuel and in an Eco Fueler you're going to go close to 200 miles.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
That's pretty incredible.

John Green - Eco Fueler
Big difference. And we aren't making any kind of stretch on physics or anything. It's just solid good engineering that we're using; a fuel that's clean and is available, most of people in Southern California have it in their homes already. You use it to cook with; the gas company is right behind us on this entire project. The other thing is that cars are quite beautiful; they are unusually beautiful for a three-wheeled vehicle. I kid people and say, if you keep driving that four wheeled car you have right now you look like a herd animal. You drive one of these you look like a movie star.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
These are like three passenger vehicles as well.

John Green - Eco Fueler
Three passenger vehicles; they are free way, they're your fast lane, they're the what they call the commuter lane, legal for a single person so it makes extremely convenient for somebody, who is doing commuting because they're immediately with one driver they're into the fast lane and they get to commute but for virtually no money.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
What type of metal are we using on the body style? Is it actually aluminum or what?

John Green - Eco Fueler
It's fiber glass, when we built the car basic concept behind the automobile was a fact that we felt that a person could have a commuter car; that would incorporate a lot of things that everybody would really love to have. Number one, it's built like a race car, we have race car suspension in it. The handling is very similar to the best sports car you're ever going to run into and thirdly it's some what of a hot rod. If you put a turbo on it, the performance would be right off the board.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
0 to 60 in how fast?

John Green - Eco Fueler
Well, certainly if we have turbo on there it would be extreme, but normally right - with the conventional car, the production car is going to run somewhere between 6 and 7 seconds.

Matt Kelly NextGear
These vehicles are they in production right now or we just got some concept cars.

John Green - Eco Fueler
These are production vehicles.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
How soon do you think it will be scalable before they're into full mode production?

John Green - Eco Fueler
We're in -- we are actually producing as we talk right now. We'll be delivering our first cars -- we don't have the large volume right now, but the first cars will be delivered somewhere between January 1st and January 15.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
What are we looking out for a base sticker price?

John Green - Eco Fueler
That's the other nice part about this, the base sticker price on the car is $20,000 but you get back some Federal rebates, because it's a clean air vehicle, there is about $5000 worth of Federal rebates and depending on the state you are in, you have additional rebates over and above that. So, the net cost to you - the least it is going to cost you -- sorry the most it is going to cost you is about $15,000 and you're going to have car that you can drive for penny's a mile.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
So, its fun to drive, its affordable and you also get cash back from the Federal Government at the end.

John Green - Eco Fueler
There is another thing when we developed the compression system that we put in the home that was developed as a compression system for hydrogen. As it turns out we've tested the cars, basically what you're looking at is the first production hydrogen vehicle in the world, because to make these cars run on hydrogen, when they have hydrogen all you do hook it up to our conventional system we have.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
It's remarkable.

John Green - Eco Fueler
So, we are looking at the next century I guess with this one.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
John, your final thoughts on the Eco Fueler and the alternate fuel industry itself.

John Green - Eco Fueler
Well, I think that this is a real break through. I think that we potentially could become a major player in the automotive industry. I could be -- the big three they simply don't want to do anything. They've had 25-30 years of this problem, they haven't done anything and if you were one of the people to run those companies, you would be -- your job 1 is to protect your job, it's not entrepreneurial activities. You look at the EV1 for instance, it's history, it has gone away, it disappeared. I think most of other things that happened along that line. I know there are attempts to do natural gas cars; they just have the wrong concepts.

Matt Kelly - NextGear
Alright, it's hydrogen. We're with John Green live at the Los Angeles Auto Show; I'm Matt Kelly for the NextGear on PodTech.net.