Santa Monica Hailed as Pioneer
April 23, 2007

A page 1 story in the Detroit Free Press hailed Santa Monica, California, as leading the way in shifting the transportation paradigm away from petroleum to other fuels.

The article, entitled “California city leads in taking foot off the gas,” discusses efforts by Santa Monica, home of Edmunds.com, to convert its gasoline-powered vehicles to alternative fuels a move that started in 1994.

About 81 percent of the city’s fleet runs on something other than petroleum today. Santa Monica uses an array of vehicles and fuels, from street sweepers running on natural gas to 24 fully electric Toyotas. The city is installing electric chargers in public parks and parking garages to encourage more electric vehicles. The city's goal is to make its entire fleet petroleum-free and be the first in the nation to draw all its electricity from the sun or wind in the next 20 years.

"Santa Monica is leading the way. It's changing the transportation paradigm on what can be done, what is possible," Chelsea Sexton, an electric car and alternative-fuel advocate and former General Motors employee who worked on GM's first electric car program, told the newspaper.

“While municipal fleets from Las Vegas to Taylor, Michigan, have -- with little fanfare -- converted city vehicles to alternative fuels for years, Santa Monica has been at the forefront of the movement and is worth watching as more cities and counties convert,” environmental activists say in the article.

"California is throwing a lot of money at these things, and they've gotten further ahead," said Sean Reed, executive director of Ann Arbor's Clean Energy Coalition, a nonprofit group that helps Ann Arbor, Michigan, obtain federal financing to convert to clean technologies.

Santa Monica officials told the Detroit Free Press they haven't had to spend a lot of extra money to go green: Its up-front costs are greater, but they've been offset by savings down the line with less maintenance and lower fuel costs. The most expensive undertakings, such as hydrogen, have been subsidized by state or federal grants.

"We're the gatekeepers," said Rick Sikes, Santa Monica's fleet superintendent, told the newspaper. "We're the ones saying this will work or it won't work. We have to give everything a fair shot."

What Santa Monica has learned, according to the report:
· fuel costs can be kept under $2 a gallon with propane, electricity and natural gas;
· hydrogen technology is costly, and Santa Monica's hydrogen vehicles can hold enough fuel to go only about 45 miles;
· alternative-fuel gauges work differently than traditional gauges. Workers sometimes have run empty on the road.

Other interesting tidbits from the article:
· the city sponsors national gathering annually of more than 100 exhibitors, from the familiar -- General Motors -- to the far-out -- Tellurian BioDiesel Inc;
· the city is experimenting with making its own clean-burning biodiesel;
· the city is a test ground for vehicles too expensive for most local governments. This year, Santa Monica plans to buy full-size, fast-running, fully electric pickups that go up to 90 miles per hour, much faster than electric cars on the market now but at a cost of $45,000 each;
· Santa Monica has become the city other cities turn to for alternative fuel answers. The city regularly gets calls from fleet managers around the country who have been directed by elected officials to convert vehicles to alternative fuels.

The article concludes that it will be cities like Santa Monica that shift the transportation paradigm and push alternative fuel technologies as the unglamorous field testers.

"Auto companies didn't do it. Consumers didn't do it. Celebrities didn't do it. Who's doing it? Small towns. Real change comes from below, not from above," Kevin McKeown, a Santa Monica city councilman, told the Detroit Free Press.

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