Interesting news from the Frankfurt Motor Show, according to today's Guardian, is that manufacturers are falling over themselves to develop alternatives to petrol cars.
It's not going to happen, and I say this for a couple of reasons. First, the consumer and business driver need this alternative fuel now, not once the manufacturers have agreed whatever they have to agree, settled the inevitable arguments about whose idea it was and signed on a piece of paper. Second, the consumer doesn't want to upgrade his or her entire car just in order to have a choice of fuels, they just want it to go. Yes a changeover worked with unleaded petrol but that was more or less compulsory. It would be good to believe that the manufacturers are also thinking about green issues when they investigate alternatives, but I suspect that's a bit of a pipe dream.
Third, there is no way the OPEC countries are going simply to allow the petrol-based industry to go away without a fight. I'm not talking about a fight with violence but a fierce commercial battle to ensure their product remains popular and well-used. This will of course involve price cutting, if it becomes an issue at all, and price cuts will address just about all of the motorists' objections.
Personally I'm expecting this brief, panic-driven blip in petrol supplies to subside by the weekend - I hope so, since for all my bluster about there being no shortage my tank is now in need of a refill and apparently the local pumps are starting to show a certain weakness of supply. Yes, I suppose I was asking for that by claiming so stridently that there was no shortage in this very blog. Form an orderly queue to have a laugh at me, please.
Meanwhile the various efforts announced by the motor industry in Frankfurt will be irrelevant by the time any actual product comes out - but in the meantime the cynic in me says it's great PR for them.
