“Our push here is to drive natural gas technologies to get to a point where acquisition costs drop by 30 or 40 percent and ROI falls down to two years or less for these vehicles,” he added. “And those efforts are being helped by the dramatic infrastructure enhancements already under way: By year’s end there will be 275 new, LNG fueling stations located every 150 miles or so along the country’s major trucking routes with another 17 stations under construction.”

Looking toward long-term solutions, Chu says promising research indicates biofuels could become a viable option one day. Using this approach, Chu says, various forms of organic matter, from fast-growing grasses to waste products can be mixed with yeasts and bacteria to create chemical reactions that create chemicals very similar in form and function to gasoline or diesel fuel. While stressing that these efforts are in the early stage and a long way from maturity, Chu notes that research is far enough along, and results are encouraging enough to begin construction on a pilot plant to explore mass production of these fuels.

Electric vehicles remain a promising option for many urban fleets, Chu says. And recent battery developments are increasing the efficiency of all-electric vehicles considerably. “The current problem here is battery price,” Chu explains. “Currently, we’re talking about $10,000 to $15,000 for battery systems for these vehicles. We’ve just seen the introduction of 400 kilowatt battery system, which doubles the power density of electric drive vehicles. And the Department of Energy’s focus going forward will be to reduce the cost of these battery systems from $600 per kilowatt hour where we are today, to $150 per kilowatt hour by 2020.”

Chu notes that as emerging nations burn more and more diesel and gasoline, diversity will become increasingly important for truck fleets in coming years. “And like fleet managers, I am unimpressed by technology for technology’s sake,” he added. “I firmly believe that the Department of Energy must do whatever it can to help manufacturers and fleets get to the point where any additional costs added to a vehicle to boost fuel economy must be paying for itself in 3 or 4 years. This is what we are focusing on when it comes to electric or hybrid vehicles or just plain better conventional diesel engines and hope that competition between companies helps feed this effort. In the last three to five years we’ve seen a lot of progress from the private sector in partnering with us and we hope to continue that trend moving forward.”