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Shuttle Company Offers Green Rides

POSTED: 7:13 pm PDT March 28, 2008
UPDATED: 7:28 pm PDT March 28, 2008

Wherever Shuttle offers many of the same amenities as other chartered transportation companies. Comforts such as satellite radio, video monitors and lots of leg room. But one thing makes Wherever Shuttle different.

"Both of our vehicles were converted to run on straight vegetable oil," Wherever Shuttle owner Ryan Wilcox said.

That's right, San Diego's first green shuttle company takes its fuel from the frying pan to the gas tank.

"Pretty much all we do is we pick it up from a restaurant and filter it through a five micron filter bag into a 50-gallon container. We then pump it straight into our car. It's that simple. Anybody can do this," Wilcox said.

That is, anybody with a diesel engine with some modifications of course.

"We have a heated fuel filter inside our engine that allows the oil to be heated first and then filtered in a way that it's able to burn straight in a diesel engine. It's not very expensive and you pick up oil from a restaurant, it can pay for itself," said Wilcox.

Being innovative and environmentally friendly certainly separates Wherever Shuttle from its competitors. But it hasn't attracted big business, at least not yet.

"We don't get many people that want to ride with us yet. That is very many that want to ride with us just because we're a green company. But maybe that's something in the future that we want to change," Wilcox said.



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