July 24, 2012

Dept. of Energy Alt-Fuel Technology Database Provides Benchmarking Data

The Transparent Cost Database provides average fuel economy and capital cost projections for vehicles with alternative-fuel or other types of powertrain technology.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has created a new public database that provides cost and performance estimates for advanced vehicle and renewable fuel technologies, in addition to other information.

Called the Transparent Cost Database (TCDB), the site is searchable by category, for example a fleet manager can search the database by fuel or powertrain type (gasoline, diesel, hybrids, electric, natural gas, propane autogas, etc.). In addition, the charts provide historical data and projections.

The site doesn't provide any vehicle-specific information (as the EPA tracks that information), but rather provides information such as average vehicle fuel economy and capital cost estimates.

According to the DOE, the TCDB is designed to provide data that companies, utilities, policy makers, and others can use to benchmark costs and model energy scenarios, among other uses. The TCDB uses data from more than 100 existing reports, and the DOE said it plans to allow outside experts to contribute new data in order to expand and validate the data.

The TCDB was developed by the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and used funds from the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

You can view the database here. To use the database, click the "Launch" button on the site and then the "Vehicles" button on the left-hand navigation.