In an effort to bring down the gasoline cost for his fleet, Lotus Car's Chief Financial Officer is looking at the possibility of adding alternative fuel vehicles to its fleet. To make a sound decision, she decided to hire a consultant firm that would review and determine if implementing the addition of alternative vehicles would benefit the company.
By performing thorough research, the consultants will first perform a comparison between gas vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles. The consultant will then determine the advantages and disadvantages of adding alternative vehicles to Lotus Rental Car Company.
Before the decision is made to add alternative-fuel vehicles to the Lotus fleet, we need to determine if AFVs truly are a feasible option. We must first acquire an understanding of alternative-fuel vehicles. As discovered in our research, there are currently a wide variety of alternative-fuel vehicles being used today. Alternative-fuel vehicles can operate on fuels other than gasoline or diesel. They come in a variety of forms, from commuter cars to large 18-wheelers. Using alternative fuels helps reduce our nation's dependence on imported oil and improves air quality. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct) defines alternative fuels as electricity, ethanol, natural gas, propane, methanol, hydrogen, and biodiesel (U.S. Department of Energy, What is the Energy Policy Act of 1992, para. 2).
Gas prices all over the world have been elevated for years, giving drivers no other option than to pay the high costs of gasoline with more people driving vehicles that require more gas on a weekly basis (Hybrids gas up less often, n.d). By the end of 1993, about 275,000 Alternative Fuel Vehicles were running on American roads. These were nearly all federal or private fleet vehicles, not really publicized and were scarcely available to the public. Although these numbers were a major figure in that year, the projection