Comments on: Trucking, Fuel Costs, and Local Production… http://www.adeoressi.com/2008/08/26/trucking-fuel-costs-and-local-production/ Entrepreneur, Environmentalist, and Founding Member of TheFunded.com Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:02:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Kevin http://www.adeoressi.com/2008/08/26/trucking-fuel-costs-and-local-production/#comment-377 Kevin Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:16:49 +0000 http://www.adeoressi.com/?p=156#comment-377 The marketplace itself will point the way to local delivery market niches. Existing market analysis tools can tell us where the major players on the big board stock exchanges are at any time, and where their weaknesses are. Such software tools are expensive though, and not designed for what you're proposing. Maybe just looking at consumer indexes will reveal mass-market weaknesses to suggest holes which need filling; market driven demand. In the meantime, enterpreneurs will have to launch armys of salesment, and reinvent marketing strategies themselves. Major changes in fleet vehicular power involve life-cycles spanning 5-10 years for return on investment, but the services & conversion market can produce immediate results. Fuel prices are fluctuating, and the summer peak has passed, but this is not the end of high gas costs. It's time that fleet managers look into alternatives like CNG, and biofuels. Some would argue that's going backwards" Diesel built his first engine to run on peanut oil, and Jimmy Carter could have saved us all, but they were ahead of their time and promoted these things badly. Just looking at what's going on out there, and pick a few likely alternatives: Hybrid trucks, or multi-fuel options, biodiesels from waste oil, or sawgrass (not corn). I would suggest monitoring, or even backing one of each, and market them to Fleet managers. Bulk deployments will lower per-vehicle conversions, and promote wider acceptance of each. Then track the progress of these, and competing alternatives. Once a few show good profit margin combined with reliable sustainability, over a consistant progression of fiscal quarters, then savvy VC can back the fast dogs in that race. The marketplace itself will point the way to local delivery market niches.
Existing market analysis tools can tell us where the major players on the big board stock exchanges are at any time, and where their weaknesses are.

Such software tools are expensive though, and not designed for what you’re proposing.

Maybe just looking at consumer indexes will reveal mass-market weaknesses to suggest holes which need filling; market driven demand.

In the meantime, enterpreneurs will have to launch armys of salesment, and reinvent marketing strategies themselves.

Major changes in fleet vehicular power involve life-cycles spanning 5-10 years for return on investment, but the services & conversion market can produce immediate results.

Fuel prices are fluctuating, and the summer peak has passed, but this is not the end of high gas costs.
It’s time that fleet managers look into alternatives like CNG, and biofuels.

Some would argue that’s going backwards” Diesel built his first engine to run on peanut oil, and Jimmy Carter could have saved us all, but they were ahead of their time and promoted these things badly.

Just looking at what’s going on out there, and pick a few likely alternatives: Hybrid trucks, or multi-fuel options, biodiesels from waste oil, or sawgrass (not corn). I would suggest monitoring, or even backing one of each, and market them to Fleet managers. Bulk deployments will lower per-vehicle conversions, and promote wider acceptance of each.

Then track the progress of these, and competing alternatives. Once a few show good profit margin combined with reliable sustainability, over a consistant progression of fiscal quarters, then savvy VC can back the fast dogs in that race.

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