SUV Owners Find Relief from High Gas Prices in Ford Escape Hybrids March 2005

You've been putting your money where your gas tank is.

Too much of your money. So your pocketbook's running on empty after you fill'er up.

Heidi Short of Monterey knows the feeling.

"It just made me sick every time I pulled into the station," she said.

But Short, like many others, isn't one to sit idly by. A month ago, the former TV news reporter turned stay-at-home mom traded her 14-miles-per-gallon truck for a 28-miles-per-gallon SUV hybrid.

Sometimes it becomes necessary to spend money in order to save it.

Many drivers in Monterey County are like Short: They want to have their SUVs and get their good gas mileage, too.

"We're a 'stuff' society," said Mark Erickson, general manager of Val Strough Honda in Seaside. "People just need to carry things around."

One answer: Gear down from super- to saner-sized SUVs. Erickson, for one, has seen a lot of the real whoppers coming in on trades, "The big domestic ones that are overweight and over-powered for the uses people put them to."

And that's understandable, he said.

"What they were spending on gas is almost a car payment on a gas-efficient car."

SUV downsizing|

Some dealers have also seen a downshift, or worse, in sales of extra-large SUVs, including Frank Estrada, a salesman at Chevrolet of Salinas, and Jamie Melendez, fleet manager at Cypress Coast Ford Lincoln Mercury in Seaside.

"Big SUVs have crashed," Melendez said.

On the other hand, Tom Maher, owner of MY dealerships in Salinas and Monterey, said his big SUVs may not be "jumping off the lots, but they're steady."

That may not last forever.

"When gas gets to $3 a gallon, I can't see how everybody can have these big SUVs and drive them back and forth to work," said Al Mohr, owner of Mohr Imports in Monterey.

Maher agreed. "It just makes sense that people would change at some point," he said.

When Short changed to her new SUV, she went for one of the smaller models. And she went a step further. She bought a hybrid -- a Ford Escape, which is basically electric, but with a gas engine standing by to take charge when the going gets tough -- or, really, just moderately fast.

Around town, battery power is often all her Escape needs to get by. "Golf cart mode," Short calls it. Since it doesn't use gas then, it can get much better mileage than all-gas-all-the-time SUVs.

The Escape was the first hybrid SUV made anywhere in the world and the first hybrid anything made by an American manufacturer. So Short is plugged in to the latest fuel-saving technology.

But she doesn't need to plug her Escape in overnight to charge it up.

Many people ask about that when she comes out of the gym or the grocery store and finds them eyeing her new wheels.

People tend to have misconceptions about hybrids because they don't see them very often.

True, hybrid cars have been around for about five years. And they're in such demand that dealers can't keep them on the lot. Still, there's not a lot of them on the road. Manufacturers just don't make very many, and they account for less than 1 percent of automobile sales nationwide.

The biggest slice of that small pie goes to the Toyota Prius. Carter Powell, a salesman at Salinas Toyota, calls the Prius the "mileage king," and the April issue of "Consumer Reports" says it achieved "the highest overall fuel economy we've ever recorded in a five-passenger vehicle."

But the first hybrid car on the market was the Honda Insight, later followed by the hybrid Civic and just in the last few weeks the hybrid Accord. The Hondas are so-called "mild hybrids" -- basically gas-powered cars that get an assist from an electric motor -- in contrast to the basically electric Prius, Escape and Lexus RX 400h, the world's first luxury hybrid coming April 15.

Still, the Hondas get more-than-mildly-good mileage. In fact, according to "Consumer Reports," the Insight does even better than the Prius. It's much smaller, though, with room for only two people.

Mileage shock|

"Consumer Reports" mileages differ from the EPA mileages listed on the new-car stickers. And actual consumers report different mileages still. For instance, Short's reported 28 miles-per-gallon is considerably lower than the EPA figure for the Escape.

Another Escape owner, Steve Davies of Pacific Grove, gets about what Short does. He also owns a Prius -- the original model, not the new, improved one out now -- and that doesn't get its promised mileage, either.

But, Davies said, "I don't think anybody does." By that he meant any buyer of any new car, hybrid or not. In fact, he believes non-hybrids miss the mark by more than hybrids do.

Both Short and Davies are happy with the mileage they do get. And both bought their hybrids at least partly for that reason.

"I would think that anybody that buys a Prius is looking for something other than transportation," Davies said.

Hidden costs|

But buying a hybrid to save money is an iffy proposition because they cost more -- about $3,000 to $5,000 more -- than comparable gas-powered cars.

You'd have to drive your hybrid mighty long and far to save that much in gas money. On the other hand, you'll get a tax deduction for buying a hybrid, although that's been shrinking and could vanish in 2006. It's also possible that the trade-in or resale value of hybrids will also be higher than for non-hybrids.

Besides easing the pain at the gas station, hybrids and other fuel-efficient vehicles can help ease the pressure for gas to get so pricey in the first place. That comes from the limited supply of oil in the world, and the growing competition for it.

With demand gushing in China and India, "There's a lot more puppies at the bowl," said Peter Blackstock, owner of the Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealerships in Seaside.

Of course, buyers may be thinking less about the global economy than about saving the globe. "I don't think there's anybody that doesn't want to be perceived as 'green,'" Blackstock said.

And he noted another reason why hybrids are hot. "It's the latest technology," he said, "so some people just have to have it."

Picking a commuter car|

Of course, hybrids aren't the only way to throw money at the problem of high-priced gas. You can also buy an extra "commuter car."

"Some people right now are picking up a second or third car," said Larry Cartmill, the sales manager at Victory Toyota in Seaside, "something not too expensive to drive to work."

Melissa Nichols, CEO of Scott Motors in Marina, has noticed the same phenomenon. "People come in and say they want a commuter," she said, "... an extra car that's cheaper on gas."

Maher hasn't seen that happening and doesn't see much of a future in the practice. "You'd need a lot of discretionary income to have an extra car just to drive around in," he said.

Then again, some people do have a lot of discretionary income, and the high price of gas may be pretty low on their list of concerns.

Price no object|

Sean Ford, sales manager at BMW, said he's seen no effect of that whatsoever, and Ken Boswell, general manager of Land Rover Monterey in Seaside, hasn't seen much.

Froylan Manriquez, a salesman at MY cars in Salinas, explained. People generally shell out between $50,000 and $60,000 for a Lincoln Navigator, he said. "And we're selling those pretty good." But clearly, "If they buy one of those, they're not going to worry about gas."

Nationwide, sales of big SUVs were down in January, but that may not indicate a trend. "I will give you the weirdest fact you'll ever want to hear," said Joe Cardinale, owner of the Cardinale Automobile Group in Seaside. "I just looked at the large SUV segment for last month, and it's up."

But even weirder, perhaps, is this fact: Despite record-high prices at the pump, some American automakers are pumping up the power in soon-to-debut SUVs. Although they haven't announced mileage figures, few expect fuel-efficiency to improve.

Soledad resident Deanna Garcia isn't worried about the next generation of SUVs. She's just worried about the generation she's got, a 2004.

She likes it. And it's way too early to think about trading it in. But while she commutes in it to Salinas, it doesn't exactly fit the cheap-to-drive definition of "commuter car."

"The price of gas -- it's really hitting my pocketbook," she said. "I'm going a fraction of what I used to go on the same amount of money."

SOURCE: Monterey County Herald

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