DAY ONE
Classroom Discussion
In this lesson, you will review the costs associated with alternative-fuel vechicles and government incentives to begin moving people toward changing their purchase habits and driving habits. For various reasons, most alternative-fuel vehicles currently cost more than the traditional gasoline-fueled vehicles they are intend to replace.
The fuels used for these vehicles are often more expensive when one considers the amount of energy they can get from a dollar’s worth of fuel. To offset these costs and encourage people to buy these vehicles, local, state, and federal governments have enacted laws providing tax incentives for the purchase or use of alternative‐fuel vehicles. Incentives include tax credits, tax deductions, and subsidies for the makers, buyers, or sellers of alternative fuels.
A point of clarification going into this lesson is that gasoline/electric hybrid vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles are not the same thing. While both are alternative forms of power for vehicles, “hybrids” utilize more energy from gasoline by converting and storing extra energy as electricity, then using the electricity to reduce gasoline usage. Alternative fuels are a different energy source for vehicles. The government tables on the Department of Energy’s Alternative and Advanced Vehicles site address both for expediency.
As a reminder, at the end of this module, you will be asked to create an action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions produced by transportation usage in their community. The final project should be produced within your team.
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
Describe the costs and savings related to replacing a gasoline‐powered vehicle with an alternative‐fuel vehicle.
Locate alternative‐fuel stations near their homes or school.
Describe government programs intended to increase purchases of alternative‐fuel or hybrid vehicles.
Lesson Essential Questions:
1. What motivates individuals to buy alternative‐fuel vehicles?
2. How can governments encourage people to buy more alternative‐fuel vehicles?
3. What is the true cost of an alternative‐fuel vehicle?
Key Vocabulary (appropriate for a word wall):
tax credit, incentive
Resources from other Web sites:
Department of Energy sites:
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/light– Alternative and Advanced Vehicles
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/prices.html– Fuel Prices
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/locator/stations/– Alternative Fueling Station Locator
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/incentives_laws.html – State and Federal Incentives and Laws
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=157557,00.html– Summary of the Credit for Qualified Hybrid Vehicles
Classroom Discussion
Review what you discussed in Lesson 4 regarding mass transportation options.
How you personally have ever chosen to take a train or other mass transit (bus, train, subway, airplane, etc.) rather than drive somewhere. Explain why? Let’s make a T chart to keep a list of the pros and cons of traveling by mass transit rather than by car. Possible pros include not having to worry about traffic jams and not having to pay to fuel up your vehicle; possible cons include cost per ride, mass transit schedules and availability, and getting to the mass transit location from their home.
Would you take a train somewhere if you knew that you would need to switch trains once, and that it would take an extra half hour compared to driving. Record the number who would ride the train rather than drive. Would you take the same trip by train if someone gave you $20 to make the trip? $25? $30?
What are incentives? Some businesses and government agencies use incentives to encourage people to take mass transit. One incentive is to pay part or all of the costs.
The government does something very similar when legislators vote to provide incentives to people who agree to buy alternative energy vehicles.
Go to this page from the IRS Web site, Summary of the Credit for Qualified Hybrid Vehicles:
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=157557,00.html,
You will find that it details the program to give a federal tax credit to purchasers of certain hybrid vehicles. Scroll down the screen to locate the chart with the actual figures. While this chart is complicated, the key point is that the government uses financial incentives to try to forward the goal of getting people to use less fossil fuel.
You may have filed taxes, although most will not. A tax credit means that the government reduces the taxpayer’s total income on which taxes are owed by a certain credit amount, or the government allows the taxpayer to subtract the incentive amount from the amount of taxes owed. Let’s take a look at this chart that indicates the value of the credit for each type of vehicle. Note that the amount of the credit varies based on the fuel economy of the vehicle compared to a similar gasoline‐powered vehicle.
Do you think that this tax credit would be a good incentive to buy a hybrid vehicle based on the cost of the vehicle and the gas savings? Like the general public, you may have different opinions on this topic, depending on how much you reducing environmental problems.
One question that may have come up as you reviewed different energy sources for vehicles is why alternative fuels are not more widely used. Note that alternative fuels are not the same as gasoline/electric hybrids, which still use gasoline, but much less of it. To begin this process, you will need to consider current regulations as well as the cost of purchasing and using an alternative‐fuel vehicle.
DAY TWO
Student Activity 15:
Divide into your teams and go to the Department of Energy’s web site on Alternative and Advanced Vehicles at http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/light.
This web site will allow you to find currently available alternative‐fuel vehicles. Remember that these vehicles are for personal use. Many mass transit vehicles are also beginning to use these technologies.
In order to get a comparison of the available vehicles over time, l want you to compared different years.
In your Engineering Notebooks, record the types of alternative fuel vehicles you studied in Lesson 1. You may also wish to monitor gasoline/electric hybrid vehicles.
On the web page, select the vehicle category of “Light‐Duty Cars and Trucks” and then “Search By: Fuel‐Technology”. If you have any questions ask me.
I want each team to use the the “Clean Cities Alternative Fuel Price Report” to compute the cost of using an alternative fuel at Fuel Prices :
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/prices.html
You should select the most recent copy of the report. Table 2 in the report includes the price‐per‐gallon equivalent of gasoline. This price is the cost of the amount of the fuel that it would take to equal the energy in a gallon of gasoline. This information can be found in the second column of the table.
Have you calculate the difference in fuel cost over the course of a year. You can assume that an individual drives 12,000 miles in a year. The formula for this i
12,000 miles
Cost difference = ------------------ ($GALgas - $GALalter/fuel )
MPG
where mpg is the EPA fuel economy of th e gasoline model. The cost per gallon of the alternative fuel should be the cost per gasoline gallon equivalent found in the alternative‐fuel price report.
Now use the Alternative Fueling Station Locator found at http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/locator/stations/to find alternative‐fuel pumping stations near the school or their homes. Some fuels may be completely unavailable in the area, while others may be abundant. Record in you notebooks the number of each type of fueling station located within 25 miles of their homes or the school.
Student Activity 16:
In the final portion of this lesson, you will create a hypothetical federal incentive program that will encourage people to purchase alternative‐fuel vehicles. Begin by asking yourself whether you think that buying an alternative‐fuel vehicle is worthwhile. Most of you will see that alternative‐fuel vehicles are more expensive to buy and often more difficult to refuel than gasoline‐fueled vehicles.
How might the government be able to convince people to buy these vehicles? In the introduction, we discussed tax credits. However, before a program of tax credits can be implemented, the government must make many decisions, including which vehicles deserve credits, and how large the credits should be.
Ask yourself to consider how much of the cost would need to be offset for them to consider buying an alternative‐fuel vehicle. Discuss whether the incentive should include ways to minimize differences in the cost of fuel. These questions will help them frame their research into existing incentives in the next portion of the lesson.
Visit the State and Federal Incentives and Laws site at http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/incentives_laws.html to research existing laws that the federal government and various states have in place to encourage the use of hybrid vehicles and alternative‐fuel vehicles. Find any incentives that come from your own state or local government.
Next, lead a group discussion of the pros and cons of some of the measures that you have studied. Among the advantages and disadvantages you might consider should be whether the incentive favors certain types of fuels over others, whether it is large enough to encourage people to change their buying behaviors, or whether it benefits certain types of people or businesses.
Create a proposal for a federal law that would encourage people to buy alternative‐fuel vehicles. Then, I want you to write sample letters to their Congressperson explaining your proposals. Using the information that you acquired during the lesson, defending your positions. You are allowed to use or modify laws that are already in existence, but you must offer rationale as to why this law would be the best alternative. If we don't have enough time in class, do this student activity as a homework assignment.
Classroom Discussion
Review the ideas discussed in this lesson by having you volunteer to describe a tax incentive that is used to encourage people to buy and use alternative fuel vehicles.
Review the ideas that will be discussed in Lesson 6.
As a reminder, you learned about ways in which the government can create incentives for people to use alternative‐fuel vehicles. In the next lesson, you will conduct a survey to explore whether those incentives are needed in their community.