A good example of a bus manufacturer that appears to have all the parameters right to succeed in the hybrid bus marketplace is Fisher Coachworks. Fisher is selling their GTB-40 model now. What’s newsworthy is both their lowered cost of production making the hybrid bus acquisition cost competitive and their 3 times the average 10mpg vs. 3mpg standard diesel fuel mileage figure. Or, consider Volvo, a name brand most bus industry people know. Volvo has a whole division that is now producing buses, as well as, trucks and construction equipment that run on hybrid technology. For the next few years, expect only a handful of percentage points for the adoption of hybrid bus technology, but it is a start.

The infrastructure required to distibute liquefied natural gas, convert vehicles to operate on LNG, and provide convenient fueling opportunites already exists in many parts of the country. It doesn’t take a fancy economist or high-level engineer for many to conclude there is a powerful opportunity here to further another of the many small steps required to lessen ‘America’s Petroleum Addiction’. If this action is relatively cheap to implement and cheaper to operate we need to proceed right now. We realize that, in the long run, this approach suffers from the same limitation as petroleum in that it is a ‘nonrenewable’ resource. On the other hand, we currently have plentiful domestic supplies of natural gas and we should be taking advantage of our market position and current capabilities with this fuel source.

Any plan has it’s detractors. Many will say ’so what’, this idea will not have a major impact on our long term petroleum problem. We disagree. A decline of even a percent or two in our utilization of imported oil for vehicle fuels could be worth billions of dollars. None of this will happen unless we step up and ride on the bus to cleaner (and cheaper) transportation.

While the combi itself is nothing to write home about – just a large ten passenger van with a driver and a cobrador, or conductor – the way combis are organized make them perfect for navigating the sprawling world of the suburbs. Though they follow set routes like traditional buses, combis lack specific stops, picking up and dropping off passengers at any point along their route. Because of their smaller size, a combi could go where larger buses would not be welcome, such as in housing developments and big-box parking lots. This increased flexibility could allow a combi line to be more responsive to where riders actually travel than the bureaucracy-minded municipal systems.

In a country where car ownership has long been equated with economic success, many people will have to overcome their transportation bias and get on board the bus to the future.

There will be four “Pole and Canvas” mobile shops (i.e. essentially like ‘craft’ shops you find at most festivals) at each corner of the “Enterprise” when the land yacht arrives at its appointed destination. In addition to the Callahans Junction “JammoRama” club where all the music takes place, there will also be a pole and canvas shop for Bus Works providing Internet access stations for daily fees and conducting eco-awareness public tours of the green energy enhancements and savings features of the “Enterprise” bus. The third mobile shop will be an outlet for EnviroPhotonics providing eco-friendly portable and installed fixture lamps like compact fluorescents lamps and LED lamps and novelty items. Finally, a mobile video production studio, Vodd Ville, where customers can act or perform in their own mini productions for a reasonable fee.

We find it significant, for example, that buses, cars, and other road vehicles are begining to be equipped with light emitting diodes (LED’s) as the technology of choice for headlamps, and other indicator lighting. This is an example where the overall increased cost of the newer lighting technology package is easily added to the market cost of the vehicle without major impact to the consumer. The lifespans of these products in this application will almost never require replacement over the life of the vehicle. To find out more, visit EnviroPhotonics.

We don’t see a lot of evidence that hydrogen powered vehicles of any kind are really in the mainstream consumer marketplace. Sure, hybrid cars are available enough if you can deal with potential backlogs, and hybrid cars are even in the middle class affordability range. True hydrogen power for vehicles though, can barely be described as out of the lab. More will be needed to further mainstream hydrogen powered cars and, yes, buses too. We all know Mother Earth needs us to get our act together with hydrogen power. Her unhappy environmental messages to mankind seem to be getting louder each year. What we need are more profitable business endeavors to promote hydrogen powered vehicles. Here’s our take on the situation.

Recently, we had the opportunity to examine the “land yacht” business. What we mean is the manufacture and sales/leasing of custom motor coach conversions usually for road touring in an “Entertainer”, “Star”, “Crew/Band” or “Executive” style bus. Even the financial fat-cats who privately own one of these motor coaches generally don’t let it sit around back of the mansion or out in a field somewhere. Not when a significant number of these styles of motor coaches now reach over a sales price of $1million apiece after manufacture and ‘decoration’. The vast majority are handled by leasing companies as owners or agents of owners. The range of daily rates for leasing varies widely depending on a number of factors. Typically, one could expect to pay $1000-$3000 per day and the leasing companies are only interested in bids for a weekly lease as an absolute minimum. The ‘public tranportation’ grade of hydrogen buses used in the demo projects go for around $3million, so that means per day lease rates for a luxury hydrogen bus conversion should come in under $10,000 per day. That’s a bit steep, but not impossible for the types of lessors one can expect in the “land yacht” business.

What’s important about this analysis is that many of the corporate captains, top name entertainers and stars are seeking a way to demonstrate their commitment to the environment. What better way to show it than by leasing a cutting edge appropriate technology hydogen bus. It’s win-win situation. Throw some photovoltaic panels on the roof to suppliment batteries (or better yet, a portable hydrogen fuel-cell electricity generator, instead of a carbon-fuels based generator). Or perhaps, install programmable, long-lasting, eco-friendly, and energy efficient LED panels on the sides instead of custom one-time expensive bus-wraps to display your messages or announcements in a style unmatched by the bus-wrap concept. The possibilites are immense with today’s existing technology and, while expensive, well worth it for this audience. If your hear about someone or a group looking to fund this type of project, leave us a comment here. We’ll scrape together our small, but not insignificant, captital resources to invest for even a few percent of the potential returns. Like we said earlier, it’s about time for the luxury hydrogen bus.

The partners of R & D Enterprises refer to this type of web-site as a UFE (i.e. Unreal Fantasy Estate). UFE’s have been around on the Internet for many years, and before, on earlier dial-up online systems. Some online chat rooms have been around for so long, that many affictionado’s of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and IM (Instant Messaging) literally view these “places” as a real somewhere they go visit for conversation, companionship, and real-world advice. E-mail junkies believe the Internet is a “free” virtual planet-wide Post Office, not-with-standing that they are paying Internet access fees, hopefully. In the past few years, MMORPG’s (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games) have begun to blur the lines between the hands-on world and the digital bits world stored on some server that could literally be physically anywhere. People are exchanging real money for “fantasy” intellectual properties.

OddVenue.com will be focusing on these phenomina, and so much more, when it comes to the truly unique ways in which mankind is moving. R & D Enterprises invites you to surf on over to OddVenue.com and join in the merriment. They hope you will have as much fun as they did in creating the web-site, or in this case, a UFE.

For example, internet telephony (VoIP), is technologically mature enough at this time that businesses should consider it as an option for all, or at least part, of their voice communications systems. This is especially true for businesses that have large costs associated with long distance fees or even intra-state per minute charges. In some instances, VoIP can be employed for cell phone usage as well.

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