A report on the readiness of firefighters and commercial fleet technicians to deal with the increasing numbers of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) on California’s roadways shows a need for increased training.
Under a grant from the Department of Energy, the California Center for Sustainable Energy and the California Clean Cities Coalitions recently published an assessment of current training on new vehicle technologies and fueling systems among firefighters and fleet service mechanics.
They found that nearly half of the 79 California fire chiefs reported a lack of such training among their staff. The 85 statewide fleet managers surveyed said they face growing training needs driven by state and federal mandates to adopt AFVs.
For more information, the full report is available below and the California Center for Sustainable Energy has published an article on the report: https://energycenter.org/article/firefighters-technicians-need-more-training-alternative-fuel-vehicles
Given the plunge in oil prices to start 2015, I have to believe that alternative fuels (bio, e85, hybrids, battery, solar, etc) are all dropping off the radar in terms of focus and funding. Oil won’t stay cheap forever, but if prices stay low for awhile, like a year or so, R&D on alt fuels and battery technology will be limited unfortunately.