Fill ‘er Up … With Sugar?
Speaking of cars of the future — and strategies to avoid the $4 gallon — the New York Times has a report on a couple of canny Davids trying to slay the uber-Goliath of the oil industry. Los Gatos, Calif. entrepreneurs Floyd Butterfield and Thomas Quinn have created the Micro-Fueller, a washer-dryer sized fueling station that creates ethanol — not out of corn, but a patented mixture of yeast and super-cheap industrial-grade sugar from Mexico. The cost: $1 a gallon. The ethanol will work in most any recent model car, no conversion required.
The cost of the device: about $5,000 with California alternative energy rebates. At that price, you’d have to make 1,667 gallons of ethanol before you start seeing ROI. That will come down with mass production, of course. But even at that price, it’s a bargain if you’re bearish on the price of oil. And let’s not forget the 100% markup you could make on $2 gallons of ethanol for all your neighbors. Forget lemonade stands: homebrew fuel is the new summertime moneyspinner.
The most important question — does the ethanol pass muster from the driver’s seat? The Times doesn’t say, which suggests either lazy reporting or a reluctance on the inventors’ part to offer test drives. It would be a shame if it were the latter, for this is a fascinating development that deserves a lot of attention. Future Boy is on the case.
UPDATE: The folks at E-fuel (that’s Butterfield and Quinn’s company) pinged FB to say they will be officially unveiling the Micro-Fueller to the press next week, and to invite him to sit down with the inventors in Los Gatos. Stay tuned, and let me know your thoughts on whether cheap NAFTA sugar is the fuel of the future.
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DiggWhat is the date on this article. I mentions an announcement next week, what’s the reference date? Also, no dates on the blog entries, I have no idea hold old this info is. Thanks
Re: Why Ethanol??? Butanol is so much better. Ethanol will destroy your car and give worse fuel mileage On Butaonol your car doesn’t need to be retrofitted and it actually gives slightly better mileage.
Hello?
Because we can’t make it this way. Much like I use bread to make sandwiches rather that using them to produce gold, which would be far more profitable.
Algea is the most promising technology for the future. The production is not limited to oil for fuel but also lubrication oil and from there plastic and other applications now depending on fossil fuel. We need to develop all technology way before we exhaust the supply of oil probably in another 70-80 years.
This is probably the biggest concern of GM. The profit is not in selling the car but in the spare parts markets that last for years and years after the car is sold. With electric cars the replaceable parts shrink to a just a few. GM will see its juicy parts market dissapear. Not only that, electric cars can be made by a number of enterprises that will go head on against the high labor cost of GM.
it is meant to be carbon neutral. The carbon absorbed by the sugarcane plant as it grows is then released in the fermentation and final burning in your gas tank. What we can hope for in the future is a CO2 neutral process.
There is much press given to the amount of arable land now being devoted to corn ethanol production. Also, immense areas of Brazilian rain forest are being denuded to meet that country’s demand for more sugar cane ethanol. I’m sure that Brazil would love to join Mexico in this sweet deal of supplying sugar to the US motorists/chemists.
I do believe the way to go for the US,
and the world, is solar or wave powered generation of electricity and FAST
CHARGE ELECTRIC VEHICLES. (Very clean
and screaming acceleration!)
The sugar component is interesting, because it addresses the fuel vs. food argument that is beginning to pose problems for current ethanol production. Ethanol must have something going for it; its what the Indy 500 uses.
Nothing new. Our forebears were making this stuff in the eastern mountains over 200 years ago. They called the product “white lightening” or “moonshine” or “Hootch”. You can bet the product will be taxed to death.
My guess is that operation and maintenance will cost about $3.00 per gallon of product excluding labor. Further, state and local agencies will probably require permits and zoning laws may preclude installations except in rural areas.
To all who don’t really understand the quoto system, let it be noted that NAFTA elimated import quotas. Therefore, unlimited quantities of Canadian and Mexican sugar is available to the US without tariffs or trade restriction.
Sugar, like other cellulosic fuel, is a renewable source of energy. It’s only the people with big oil company investments who have a reason to be concerned about using fuel from sugar as an alternate fuel source.
Why Ethanol??? Butanol is so much better. Ethanol will destroy your car and give worse fuel mileage On Butaonol your car doesn’t need to be retrofitted and it actually gives slightly better mileage.
Hello?
RE: Clearly we need more people who are not only willing to think outside the box, but totally destroy the box! Wake up we are not in Kansas anymore! Instead of trying to get five more MPGs out of a fossel fuel burner, how about finding a fuel that burns clean and is cheep(HHO) come on I know there are some real smart people out there who if were motivated could improve the worlds condition.
You must have read this idiotic article: http://www.runyourcarwithwater.com/?hop=watertt
If you all get a chance to read the article in Science you’ll see that ehtanol’s true nature is coming out. Biodiesel and PHEV are the way of the future.
Ummm..we could always just drill for more oil. There more oil reserves in the US than in all the middle east combined after all. Of course, that doesn’t make sense, we should pursue “alternatives” that cost more and provide less efficiency. The cumulative economic drag on the economy will keep enough people poor to justify continued government presence in the social safety net. Which is the entire purpose of the environmental movement anyway. Continued governmental regulation of all aspects of life.
ref: previous post about CO2 generated by fermentation. I did not manage to enter email address.
When one ferments sugar with yeast, the process throws of Carbon Dioxide for several days before the sugar is used up. Has anyone calculated whether the greenhouse gas so created might outweigh the benefit of the alcohol as a fuel??
Ron
I agree 100% with Todd. We spend too much time worrying about other countries and not enough on our own. The money being borrowed to fuel our presidents vendetta could be used to move our country to the forefront in innovation, evironmental responsibility and independence instead of mortgaging our childrens future. The article from UNH is very encouraging. I wonder what progress has been made since the time it was written. TIme for more research….
It is also possible to use Converted NAtural Gas
Answer is biodiesel from algae. This would involve engineering/evolving an appropriate strain that is both hardy, fast reproducing and with high oil content. But this is a solvable problem. If we spent a hundredth of the money we spend to go overseas and kill people, we could solve multiple worldwide problems in one stroke (this would most likely remove reasons for wars for forseeable future). All we need is a leader with a vision and a conscious. For some rough numbers see http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
Forget about internal combustion. Cars need to go electric like all other appliances in your home went. Electricity is easy to convert to and from other forms of energy and its easy and fast to transport. The problem is storing it but that will be solved soon.
Garages are going to be in deep trouble because electric motors need very little maintenance, no more oil changes and gas stations too, you can charge it at home. The weak link is going to be the batteries and the tires.
There already is a solution. When I was in Iraq I read an article in a National Geographic. There is a plant where they are growing algea and creating ethanol from it. They had already succesfully ran a ford f-250 off of it. Algea, not edible, Grows everywhere and all kinds of climates.
Great! You’ve rediscovered Moonshine!
Maybe we should submit this as a business case study to some University Business School. We could call it “Lessons in reinventing the wheel.” How’s that sound?
RE: “It’s worth noting that the Formula One cars in the Indy 500 now all run the race on 100% Ethanol fuel, for those worried about performance.”
Not so fast, my friend. “Formula One” cars run on gasoline and the cars at the Indy 500 run on methanol.
Can you imagine everyone on your street having a still and 50 gallons of alcohol in their garage? You may be super safe, but we all know neighbors who will start a fire in no time. Are you sure the entire block won’t go up in a flash?
Would not an increase in demand of sugar raise the price well beyond what it is today? (Simple economics)
What about hydrogen isn`t that cheaper
new city bus are running with it.
Clearly we need more people who are not only willing to think outside the box, but totally destroy the box! Wake up we are not in Kansas anymore! Instead of trying to get five more MPGs out of a fossel fuel burner, how about finding a fuel that burns clean and is cheep(HHO) come on I know there are some real smart people out there who if were motivated could improve the worlds condition.
Leave it to some California entrepreneurs to invent a moonshine still. What will they think of next?
RE: “It’s worth noting that the Formula One cars in the Indy 500 now all run the race on 100% Ethanol fuel, for those worried about performance.”
It may also be worth noting that there are no Formula One cars in the Indy 500.
J.C. Bell has the answer. He has gentically manipulated bacteria from cows’ stomachs to break down any biomass into cleaner oil than crude. It is incredibly cheap, and within 2-3 years he expect to be able to produce 2/3 of the country’s comsumption at a fraction of the cost of normal gasoline. Here’s the key: no change to fueling infrastructure, no change to car’s engines, yet the fuel burns cleaner than gas and is made simply from recycling what’s already in our land fills. Check it out…
Let me get this straight. I’m reading a business website. The story is that somebody has figured out how to make ethanol for $1/gallon, while the current commodity price of fuel ethanol is around $2.50 a gallon. Instead of building a factory, and making a huge profit, they’ve decided to sell their production method, to individual retail consumers, at $5K a pop. Hahahaha. You’ve got to be kidding me.
We eat sugar and yeast. The fuel needs to be made from something that is not edible. If not, you are back to the corn and soybean problem.
Imagine that these inventors mass produce these converter devices and people use them on a grand scale. Well guess what, sugar and yeast prices will go to the moon. We are right back in the same place we are now!
So buy sugar and yeast futures if you think this produce has legs!
The person who stated “Sugar is a regulated commodity and has been since the early 1900s. It cannot be imported outside of the quota. Any sugar imported is hit with a tarriff that guarantees that it will have to be sold for at least the price of domestic sugar. Finally, domestic sugar is subsidized by the government to ensure that the price paid to the grower never falls below a government set price that is determined in the farm bill.” They are correct. The solution is to unsubsidize domestic sugar and allow true free trade of imported sugar without extra tarrifs to make it as expensive as domestic. It’s time to stop paying farmers to grow things that are cheaper to import. Use that land to grow things that are more expensive to import. Every take a course in basic economics and then pick who to vote for.
Why dont we cut the work week to four days a week or cut saturday delivery of mail or better yet, have four days a week work weeks but one fifth of the employees taking one of the days off. this will help buy us some time and also decrease the congestion on the roads.
Does anybody think about our kids and grandkids? We will be known in the future as the ones that covered all our topsoil with asphalt and then ran out of gas! We are spoiled with 2 ton cars with 1 occupant. We will have to get down to something more reasonable soon. A 1 ton, 2 seat car would make sense but nobody will buy it until they have to. Meanwhile most people in the world live on less than $2/day.
Why hasn’t some genius created a large factory in the USA to convert old tires to oil? This idea was introduced 20 years ago and claimed to be “too expensive.” Not anymore. Drilling for more oil is stupid and only a short term fix.
Just thought of something; this thing works, sugar prices go up, people can’t afford sugar, everyone’s waste line goes down, we gleefully watch insurance rates drop like a stone, struggling third world economies get a deserved shot in the arm, and we end the undocumented workers issue. We all win.
Don’t forget to change your catalytic converter every 60k when the incomplete ethanol combustion clogs it.
Most of you folks seem to still embrace the man-made carbon-caused climate-change thing. You can stop now, it is not occurring. Now, we can discuss energy like adults. There is nothing as cheap and efficient as a gallon of gasoline. That is why we use it. The short-term solution is to find more oil to refine into gasoline or diesel. The long-term solution is to find an alternative that is at least as cheap and efficient as oil. Ethanol, in its current supply chain configuration, does not fit the bill.
I still find it amazing how well interested parties have passed misinformation. The overall efficiency of different fuels in an engine is going to be particular to the engine. The tighter the tolerances are pushed on the engine the less flexible it will be.
The most common comparison is made on the energy in the equivilant volume which is about 78% but that does not conver directly by any means. In an engine a large part of the energy is expended as heat. Ethanol burns at a lower temperature so a slightly smaller percentage will be spent as heat all else being the same, and there are many other factors to account for with the temperature and humidity of the air and the particular engine. I am fairly sure though the ratio is much closer to 5/4 than 3/2 in most applications.
Also you should be able to run Alcohol without removing the water from it. You are always burning some water anyway as it comes in with the air. They have cars in Brazil set to run on 90% hydrous Ethanol (water not removed) and 10% regular gasoline. This mixture has huge potential being it avoids cold start problems and uses the least energy to produce the Ethanol becuase it does not require a second phase distalation process. Anyway if you wanted to make you own and add the appropriate amount of regular Gasoline to it that would probably be worth the trouble if you could make it anywhere near the prices claimed.
I highly doubt though that there is near enough industrial sugar being produced to make even a slight dent in our consumption.
The 100 billion dollar discovery is going to be an efficient Methane gas to methanol industrial process.
Overall though it still amazes me to see how effectively the public has been reached with the misinformation campaign about the viability of alternate fuels.
Electricity needs to come from at least 10 more Nuclear plants that have to be built. Coal or Coal to oil conversion needs to take place. Drill in Alaska. Get back all the technologies that the oil companies have bought and quashed through the years. We could easily be independant however the Greenies and Government have made sure we are not. Also we need to dtop using fod for fuel. That was a stupid idea from the start.
Full Series Hydralic Hybird. Full Series Hydralic Hybird. Full Series Hydralic Hybird. Full Series Hydralic Hybird. Full Series Hydralic Hybird. Full Series Hydralic Hybird. Full Series Hydralic Hybird. Please change your thinking and move to what will work.
Keep in mind that it takes 1.5 gallons of ethanol to equal 1 gallon of regular gas. This must be considered in all calculations. It just might be that this will affect the performance of the car as well. Also if people are thinking that this reduces overall carbon emissions then they should consider this very carefully. It takes energy and some CO2 emissions to produce that NAFTA sugar and send it up here. Also there will be some input of energy and more CO2 emissions to make that ethanol pure and ready for use in your car. I do not think ethanol is environmentally friendly. Nor is it friendly to your grocery store bill. You must consider that land that would be used to produce food will now be used to produce fuel for your car.
what does it cost to send mexican sugar to omaha? and by the way, cost of mexican sugar will go through the roof..really a silly idea..go back to the drawing board
One simple task that can be done today is make all new vehicles e-85 capable. Then build the infrastructure to include this as an option at the pumps. Sell it for 15% less than ordinary gasoline and you take several billion dollars out of the hands of opec countries.
Changing habits is not as easy as it seems. If nobody mandates real changes and makes incentives for alternative fuels.. nothing will happen. I don’t buy the argument that using ethanol will boost food prices significantly enough.. if the price of fuel is under control.. it almost goes without saying that the cost offset by cheap transportation of said food would balance things out. Least we forget, that food isn’t the only thing we transport around.
We in the south call yeast and sugar moonshine. we have been running cars on it for 50 years.
I agree there are political issues related the production and use of alternative fuels, especially within the U.S.
The hurdle in the scenario described in this article is that “cheap Mexican sugar” cannot be imported into the U.S. in any volume outside the alotted quota of sugar imports for the year.
Sugar is a regulated commodity and has been since the early 1900s. It cannot be imported outside of the quota. Any sugar imported is hit with a tarriff that guarantees that it will have to be sold for at least the price of domestic sugar. Finally, domestic sugar is subsidized by the government to ensure that the price paid to the grower never falls below a government set price that is determined in the farm bill.
These market controls will force anyone using this technology to pay domestic sugar prices. If it is not cost-effective at that price point for this process, then the technology will fail.
In order to work, this technology would require an overhaul of the tarriff system that restricts the import of sugar. This is an entirely different set of politics.
It’s worth noting that the Formula One cars in the Indy 500 now all run the race on 100% Ethanol fuel, for those worried about performance. Whats missing from the current “platform” is an E85 / Hybrid car, benefits: The hybrid would provide fuel milage equal to or better than what many current autombiles get. It would be an ultra clean emmissions vehicle. The best reason to use ethanol. A lot of the money would go to the US Economy, instead of being “exported” to the Middle East. And besides its own production, the US could acquire a lot of ethanol from the Carribean, Central and South America. When hydrogen, electric, or other fuel sources become available, they can compete with biofuels and petroleum. Instead, a bunch of boneheads in D.C. and elsewhere are running around complaining why we don’t drill for more oil. . .
I missed a point earlier.
We have the ability to produce much more agricultural products than we do today.
Any food shortages are primarily political and economic.
This is not to say that we have an unlimited supply of land and water of course and that some areas do not have the amount of either needed, but we can do a better job producing food (Easy!) AND getting food to people who need it (Impossible in this day!)
Land and water are not the problem. Politics, customs and economics are.
Interesting but the lower efficiency of ethanol even in engines designed for the fuel will require substantial increases in production. Bio Diesel is more efficient but would also requre more agricultural resources.
We need to improve laws to permit people to make and use ethanol without fear from agricultural products and increase production for bio diesel.
The bio diesel should at least offset the the increase in agricultural fuel consumption since the large majority of heavy machinery is diesel powered.
For the short term, we need to increase our useage of coal to generate electricity until more hydroelectric, wind and tidal generators can be designed and brought on line.
I support research on “Cold Fusion” for the longer term solution for electricity
New technology permits tapping deep natural gas reserves that we could not until recently. Is it possible to convert oil fired generating plants to natural gas?
Can we increase electrical supplies to a level where Hydrogen can be a viable source of power? I believe so.
And park the big 4 wheel drives unless you really must have one for a job. And what about the gas guzzleing pleasure boats?
Sorry ’bout that, but our country is highly mobile. That is not likely to change and, in my opinion, should not change.
But we need to wake up and face reality.
Use fuel wisely or lose it.
I believe this type of energy is the way to go.
http://www.energyusingwater.com
I found this site last week.
Hah, will this make Mexico the new Saudi Arabia?
By the way, don’t forget
Homer Simpson ” In America, first you get the suga, then you get the powah, then you get the weemen” 
The issue of alternative fuel is no longer IF but WHEN. It is a matter of time that we will run out of oil reserve. After that coal will fill the bill for another number of decades and then the end of it. War will break if the countries that control the remaining oil or coal reserves refuse to share or impose ominous conditions. The technology and use of alternative fuel should be ease in for decades, not a single alternative will fill the bill but a number of them and the inmediate useful idea is ethanol. From sugar cane is way better than from corn and it can be produced in a number of countries. Cuba used to produce eight and a half tons of sugar a year and it can be a main source of ethanol for the US but of course, we are talking about Cuba. Politically it will never happen, the corn interest in this country has an absolute control over Washington and the only ethanol that can be produced here is the corn ethanol. Heavy tariff is imposed on ethanol to make it more expensive to import compared to corn ethanol.
The future of energy away of oil and coal is at hand. What we don’t have is political will to acomplish anything as special interest will always control Congress and the president. Solar, nuclear, ethanol, wind, algae, they are all available except that they are not and perhaps they will never be straighforward competitive with oil. They require some subsidy until such time that price of oil become so high (due to scarcity) that the technology is competitive on its own and they should be introduced over decades to slowly limit the dependency on a finite resource.
Technology we have. Political will we don’t.
The Algae comment has great potential, if it’s allowed to develop and prove itself to the oil companies. I think its a GREAT IDEA!! And cleans the air too!! What more can you ask for??
Forget ehtanol, possibly keep the algea concept. I know we can develop an engine or power source that does not require a gas tank, spark plugs, or an exhaust system. I know, I am currently working on it. I’m looking for a ‘maverick’ investor with a set of _____ to help fight the bureaucracy with this concept.
Thats because they’ve been around for years and have been suppressed by big corporations that control our government threw lobbyist. This is going back to the 60’s and 70’s as well.
It is still the wrong-headed idea. Ethanol, Biodiesel, Biobutanol, or even Biogasoline, still are using feedstock, (in this case ’sugar’), produced from plants that use arable land mass which could, and I think should, be used for growing food.
What the U.S. MUST do is devote far more dollars and resources into developing fuel from ALGAE. Algae is THE original oil that can be used to not only make biofuel for our needs, but also the oil is flexible enough to be used to even make plastics.
AND, the benefit is that it not only can be “grown” using non-arable land, but also CLEANS the air for CO2 while producing oxygen as a byproduct.
Right now, there is a grassroots scientific effort to grow algae into a biofuel, but the oil companies killed the U.S. government funded research of it, by convincing former President Bill Clinton that is was a ‘dead technology’, and he killed the funding. But it is a REAL and viable alternative fuel, and has the greatest potential for meeting all of our needs. The ROI on algae is that the oil content is 100 times higher than any other plant product, making it have the greatest potential/
The sugar is cheap now–corn was too. Wait until everyone wants it for fuel–the price will skyrocket!!
Every major gas shortage produces people who claim to have miracle 100 mpg carburators (there ain’t no such animal, & besides, nobody builds carburators anymore, they use fuel injectors), gasoline pills (scam first appeared in the 1930s), or magnetic gasoline energizers (iron or steel are magnetic, gas isn’t). Beware such miracle-mongers, for the only thing you will get from them is a ruined engine & an empty wallet.
This sounds great, but you can’t run 100% ethanol is todays cars. It technically will ‘work’, but it will have to harmful side effects. 1) The engine will run very rough (I have seen this first hand from my friend who accidentally put E85 in her accord) and 2) The acidity of pure ethanol will corrode many parts of your fuel and engine system over time. Sorry, but this is not so great a solution. If you have a car already designed for E85 than it might be a good way to save a few bucks. Fill up with 20% pump gas and make the rest yourself. Still not perfect though.
So… if you accidently leave your fuel tank open can you be sited for “Open container”… Ha…
In economics, there is this inconvenient thing called the upward sloping demand curve. The more you demand something, the more its price rises.
That is one lousy business model if that assumes that the price of sugar will stay where it is if every Joe Pickup Truck starts buying bags full of them.
Tim,
Most fuels today have well above 10% ethanol content. I know that BP Silver contains 13-17% ethanol in my area.
There is nothing wrong with contents up to 20, even 25% ethanol. The refineries have been at an advantage to add more ethanol by volume to the mix since the phasing out of MTBE for octane-raising, and relatively less expensive market price for a gallon of $6/bushel corn ethanol vs. a gallon of refined gasoline from $115 oil.
I say, anyone who buys this ethanol machine will surely reap the benefits of cheaper fuel for their say, F150 or Suburban guzzlers. Bring it on!
I do not understand why someone like Robert Bethesda has nothing better to do than poo-poo a greate thing. By the way, do you know that 3/2 * 1 is $1.50 a gallon (effective gallon price normalized to Gas). My math tells me this is still cheaper than $3.75/gallon.
Any thing to remove us off of the oil train is good. We need out of the box thinking, not down right depressing thinking.
I’m more than a little skeptical of the $1/gal. cost figure. One gallon of ethanol requires at least 10 lbs of sugar (don’t ask how I know this). So this “Mexican industrial” sugar would sell for less than 10 cents a pound, not including shipping. That’s 95% to the cost of wholesale table sugar!
Smells like snake oil to me!
Ethanol actually has only 2/3rds of the energy content of Gasoline, so you need to burn 3 gallons of pure Ethanol to produce the same work (drive the same number of miles) of 2 gallons of gas. Most American cars cannot run pure Ethanol as a fuel source - it will damage the engine. Brazil is one of the few countries where the cars produced over the last several decades were designed for pure ethanol fuel, so it is one of the few countries that commonly sells this fuel today.
As for the legality of home-made Ethanol fuel, I believe there is a Federal law that requires an additive be mixed with the fuel that purposefully makes it unfit for human consumption. If someone (such as a teenager trying to get drunk under age 21) drinks it, they will get very sick, but it’s not actually toxic. If you do not add this to the Ethanol, it is classified as a consumer product and falls under the jurisdiction of Federal and State Alcohol laws and taxation, so yes the “revenuers” will come after you wanting the taxes you owe for every gallon of fuel you produced!
There is program through the BATF for a license to produce ethanol for fuel. Don’t know how much it costs, but if you just search the web there are a couple of people who talk about it.
The heck with the car - can we drink the stuff?
If that were the case, I’m sure we would have seen Bacardi stations by now. I can see myself filling up the tank: “One for you (car), two for me… one for you, two for me…”
Now that would be revolutionary.
If the Times didn’t mention that they asked for info about performance but received no answer, then more likely than not it was lazy reporting. Always glossing over the details when it comes to pushing alternative fuels. Ethanol is usually about 15% less efficient than gasoline (diesel is ~ 15% more efficient than gasoline). I’ll take biodiesel any day.
Since when will ethanol run in any recent model car with no conversion? I was under the impression that most late model vehicles could only accept E10 (10% ethanol) with no conversion.
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"Future Boy" is the nom de plume of Chris Taylor, award-winning journalist and futurist. Currently the West Coast Editor of Fortune Small Business, he previously served as San Francisco bureau chief of Time magazine, where he wrote the magazine's first stories on tech trends such as Google and the iPod. In 2005 he became "Future Editor" of Business 2.0, where he edited the "What's Next" section, and where the Future Boy column and blog were born. Chris was born in Liverpool, England and was educated at Oxford and Columbia Universities.
interesting debate. bio-diesel by far is the best currently available fuel source, couple that with a reverse hybrid electric engine like the vw golf concept car and you have a temporary winner. long term, fuel cell is the way to go in the southern half of the us. points northern have to worry about freeze of the water in winter months as water is the only exhaust. for now if you believe the hype buy a bicycle and a helmet or take the public transit.