SAN DIEGO—Referred to as San Diego's first green shuttle company, Wherever Shuttle began with two friends who set out to promote a cleaner environment using alternative energy. Each vehicle in the company's fleet is powered by pure bio-diesel or a mix of recycled vegetable oil. "There's such a thing as free energy out there, so we just promote that to the public," said Ryan Wilcox, co-owner of Wherever Shuttle.
With a large white Mercedes van with "POWERED BY BIOFUEL" proudly written across its side, Wilcox and business partner Bruno Mora began their shuttle company in early 2007. Aside from offering the same services provided by a slew of others in the field, Wilcox and Mora took the concept to a whole new level, providing an educational twist along the journey.
While taking clients to the airport, events, or tours around the City, a TV installed in the Van gives passengers and entertaining look at Wilcox and Mora making their own fuel while simultaneously teaching those on board how to do it themselves. "They get to see what it's like [to make the fuel] and how just two guys can do it," said Wilcox, "I'm a big believer, and it's easy to do. I was just a college student, didn't know what to do in life, and I even did it. You find that it's not rocket science to filter vegetable oil."
With humble roots, Wilcox said that his interest in alternative energy was sparked after a visiting speaker addressed his class on global warming and environmental issues while he was still a student at Cuyamaca College. Inspired, Wilcox did some research online and began his first attempts at making bio-diesel, bringing his friend and co-worker Bruno Mora into the plan. "It was then that we had the idea. Ryan was trying to make bio-diesel at his home. He called me over and we started making bio-diesel together," said Mora.
Driving from restaurant to restaurant collecting used vegetable oil, it took a lot of trial and error before the formula was perfected. Mora, a San Diego resident originally from São Paulo, Brazil, joked that at first the two really didn't know what to do with all the fuel once it was made. "We didn't know why we were making it, but we were interested in it and had wanted to open our own business," said Mora, "Suddenly we had this idea of getting a shuttle; a diesel shuttle, and we put the two ideas together."
Wilcox smiled as he recalled one of the biggest lessons he learned while experimenting with the new fuel. He said that while researching online, he had bought into a somewhat disastrous process described by a website. "Their whole thing was on how to do this process really cheap, but you really can't do it that way. You need high performance pumps for the vegetable oil because it's so thick," said Wilcox, "It ended up clogging all of our filters and Bruno was trapped on the side of the highway."
Wilcox continued by explaining that the root of the problem was that they didn't realize they had to filter out the trans-fats from the oil, as it plugs everything up. Afterwards, they decided to take their van to Loveland to have it professionally converted to run bio-diesel. "What they do is basically just take out your stock fuel filter and put in a heated, high-performance filter," said Wilcox, "So it filters the oil really well and heats it up hot enough to burn in the engine – it's really simple. It's also quite inexpensive compared to some conversion kits out there, and it's been working great for the van."
Wilcox explained that what he and Mora try to promote the most is the simple use of vegetable oil as an alternative fuel. "All those complications are kind of eliminated if you do vegetable oil; filtering waste vegetable oil. You take all the dangers and complications out of making bio-diesel and it's very simple," said Wilcox. "As long as you have a conversion in your car you should be fine. And we've found that that's the easiest way to go if you're going to do it yourself."
Although they've only been in business for about seven months, they recently added a new car to the company's fleet. The two mentioned that with some of their future cars, they plan to expand to other alternative fuels; further promoting the growing field of eco-friendly transportation. "Electric cars are kind of our dream," said Wilcox, "But as long as it's green, we're all for it."
For more information visit: www.wherevershuttle.com.
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