The Emerging Fuels & Technology Office assesses and demonstrates the market potential of new transportation technologies and fuels, encourages the widespread use of low-emission alternative fuels in emerging technologies, and evaluates the development risks of and opportunities for using alternative fuels in transportation applications.

Programs in this office included the nation's most ambitious demonstration and commercialization of fuel flexible vehicles - a technology that allows vehicles to operate on methanol, ethanol, gasoline or any combination of these fuels; a public-private partnership program with several major oil companies to distribute fuel methanol at retail outlets throughout California; and the country's largest demonstration of fuel-efficient school buses, nearly 50 percent of are alternatively fueled with natural gas or methanol.

The office is also involved in technology advancement activities that promote further development of cleaner and more energy efficient vehicle technologies.