Hybrid vehicles gain favor; flex fuel sales idle
Dealers cite ethanol inefficiency, lack of availability
By DAVID LOWE Staff Writer

While flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on ethanol have not gained much popularity in Lampasas County, electric-gas hybrids are beginning to attract buyers.

Rising fuel prices prompted T.P. and Arlene Wingo to purchase a 2006 Toyota Prius, a hybrid vehicle with a gasoline engine and an electric motor.

"We've been quite pleased," Wingo said.

A hybrid's electric motor can supplement the small gasoline engine's power when a driver accelerates or drives uphill. In some vehicles, the motor alone powers the automobile at low speeds, when combustion engines achieve their lowest efficiency, according to www.fueleconomy.gov.

"Going downhill we don't use any gas at all," Wingo said.

Hybrids also automatically shut off the engine when a vehicle stops and restart it when the driver presses the accelerator. The automatic start/stop feature saves gasoline that otherwise would be burned while idling.

While he acknowledged hybrids perform better in urban, stop-and-go traffic, Wingo said he recorded his best highway mileage at 46.8 miles per gallon. He consistently travels 45 miles per gallon, even when he heavily loads the vehicle and drives 80 miles per hour on Interstate 10 toward El Paso.

"If I drove a little bit more sensibly I probably could get better gas mileage," said the county resident.

Hybrid critics have noted the vehicles' higher cost compared to typical sedans and to vehicles of the same make without an electric motor.

Bruce Crawford, who bought a 2004 Prius for his wife, Linda, estimated the Toyota hybrid costs about 15 to 20 percent more than comparable gasoline cars. He hopes to recoup the cost with gasoline savings, as Mrs. Crawford generally drives 35 to 40 miles per gallon in town. On a trip to Phoenix the Crawfords' Prius got 46 miles per gallon.

"They say if you really learn how to drive it, the gas mileage is even better," Crawford said.

The Wingos benefitted from a $2,500 dealer rebate when they bought their vehicle, but tax credits on Toyota hybrids have expired.

Tax credits varying from $160 to $3,000 remain in effect for certain Ford, General Motors, Nissan and Honda models.

Hoffpauir Ford-Mercury has received some inquiries about the Ford Escape hybrid, general manager Rick Pickard said. The twowheel drive Escape can achieve an average fuel efficiency of 34 miles per gallon, according to goverment test results available on www.40mpg.org.

Nevertheless, Pickard expects Ford hybrids to gain greater popularity with urban than rural customers.

"In order to achieve the economy of it, you almost have to be in a metro area," he said.

Although the United States has 4.4 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road, Lampasas County buyers have been slow to purchase such models, dealers say.

Many new Chevrolet Suburbans and Tahoes come equipped to burn either gasoline or an ethanol blend, Hoffpauir Chevrolet owner Lee Hoffpauir said, but not many customers have sought those models.

"I don't know of anybody who has asked specifically about a flex-fuel vehicle," he said.

Ethanol proponents argue the fuel, derived primarily from American corn, promotes agriculture related income and burns cleaner than gasoline, with reduced emissions of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.

Criticism of ethanol is growing, however, as some analysts say federal corn subsidies -- $37.3 billion between 1995 and 2003, according to the liberal-leaning Slate magazine -- elevate both food and gasoline prices.

"It takes 21 pounds of corn to produce one gallon of ethanol," said Kathleen Hartnett White, director of the Center for Natural Resources. "One person could be fed for an entire year from the corn that we're instead cooking for a single pickup tank of E-85 [a blend of 15 percent unleaded gas and 85 percent ethanol]."

Some oil market analysts, the free-market Cato Institute recently reported, also say the United States' push for "energy independence" prompts foreign petroluem-producing countries to export less oil and gas, increasing the cost American consumers pay for gasoline.

Mike McInis, Internet sales manager for Benny Boyd Dodge- Chrysler-Jeep, believes limited sales of flex-fuel vehicles stem largely from concerns over ethanol based fuel's efficiency and availability.

"It hasn't really been big here in Lampasas, because there's no ethanol readily available," he said. "We get some interest from people who come over from Killeen [where E- 85 pumps are available]."

Dodge offers flex-fuel capability on 4.7-liter Ram and Durango models and on some 2.7-liter, V6 engine cars. Dodge soon will release a 2009 Durango HEMI Hybrid, McInis said. Ethanolblended fuel -- which only 1 percent of flex-fuel owners use in their vehicles, the Center for American Progress reported -- burns less efficiently than regular gasoline, though, McInis said.

He believes the reduced gas mileage with ethanol-blended fuel may explain slow sales of flex-fuel models.

Cornell University ecology professor David Pimentel and University of California-Berkeley engineering professor Tad Patzek have released a report stating that ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs -- a measurement of energy -- per gallon, according to Slate. Producing a gallon of corn ethanol, though -- including running tractors, harvesting corn, processing the grain at ethanol plants and transporting the fuel by truck -- requires 98,000 BTUs.

Gasoline, by comparison, contains 116,000 BTUs per gallon and requires about 22,000 BTUs -- including the energy required to drill, transport and refine oil, the researchers found.