Loren Steffy

A business blog

Road to natural gas vehicles vexes GM chief


GM's Akerson speaking at CERAWeek (Pat Sullivan/STF)

Wednesday’s column, available on houstonchronicle.com:

Daniel Akerson is a bit chicken of the egg.

That’s understandable given that the egg in this case is government support and Akerson is head of General Motors, a company that received a $49.5 billion federal bailout to keep it in business.

He doesn’t want to be seen as calling on the government for help, although he essentially is.

The energy plan he proposed recently at IHS CERAWeek, which championed natural gas vehicles, tiptoed around the chicken-and-egg problem of fuel infrastructure – few buyers are likely to embrace natural gas-powered vehicles until there are places to refuel them, and no one will build refueling stations until there are more of the vehicles on the road.


Akerson’s plan provides a road map for creating a more diverse and independent energy landscape for the country over the next few decades. To do that, we must leverage the abundance of fuels such as natural gas as we develop even cleaner alternatives.

Loren Steffy

10 Responses

  1. sportsfan 99 says:

    The fact that we cannot read this entire article without being a “digital subscriber to Houstonchronicle.com” is extremely frustrating and only serves to turn people further away from te Chronicle as a news source. The Internet Chronicle surely must be able to sustain itself as it is, what with the numerous and never-ending advertising and annoying pop-ups continuously being thrown at its readers…

    • Dee says:

      Agreed, go to CNN. A lot of local newspapers are doing this. They will just lose more readers.

    • Jackalope says:

      Not to mention all the ads on Chron.com that make loading pages extremely s …. l ….. o …..w

  2. BOB says:





  3. rts says:

    Actually, there is no need for natural gas powered cars for the individual. Use natural gas, compressed or liquified, for commercial purposes. Use it for locomotives as Canada is converting to, for fleets where lots of vehicles are fueled in a single place…UPS, FedEx, Postal Service, government vehicles. Also, long haul trucks, airport ground equipment. This would cut gasoline and diesel usage by just over 50%.

    • xxx says:

      economies of scale are here on the interstates and the industries is sectioned long haul and short.

      Build refueling stations ever 75 miles. Liquid natural gas will be generally vaporized/consumed without vaporization waiting in stop and go. Plenty room on an interstate for a facility.

      Trucks would carry two disposable/propane-like containers on rails going left to right. The second one is backup. Go to the station, slide out the empty, move reserve over, insert new one.

      Refueling stations would have (OPTION):
      1) Refill at site
      2) Loader and off-loader

  4. Dan Alger says:

    No real chicken and egg problem here. Natural gas is best used for our biggest vehicles, all kinds of trucks, and locomotives plus fleet vehicles that don’t need lots of cargo space. Refueling spots for fleet vehicles and large trucks on interstates are in place or soon to be in place.

    Cars will be last, partly because the fuel tanks take up much of your trunk and partly because their drivers want a more developed fueling network. Even then if you have a long commute, put a compressor in your garage.

  5. BarksintheCountry says:

    Akerson is head of a ward of the state, supported by taxpayer money through the United Auto Workers bailout, the favorable (to the company and union) income tax treatment and the income tax credit for the useless electric vehicles they produce. Why wouldn’t he be whining about another taxpayer funded initiative to support his company’s vehicle sales. rts, above, has it exactly right if the goal is to use NG to supplant gasoline from oil.

  6. Jackalope says:

    It might be better to convert natural gas to gasoline, but even this promising development appears to be a long way off (given this article was written in 2008): http://www.technologyreview.com/news/410611/natural-gas-to-gasoline/

  7. GoJo says:

    The Koch brothers killed the Natural Gas Act, and they put their economic and political weight behind a continuation of using gasoline for automobiles. Using natural gas is a no-brainer, unless you have billions invested in refineries. Capitalists like the Koch Brothers and Jamie Dimon could care less about America. Their raison d’etre is capital. It is just that simple.