High Gas Prices Fuel Hybrids' Popularity October 2004

Long after many households had gone cellular, Lynn Austin obtained a cell phone just last year. And she really learned to use the computer only the year before last.

But when it comes to cars, this 52-year-old registered nurse is on the leading edge.

Austin traded in her 2000 Kia Sephia compact in August for a 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid, a fuel-efficient sedan whose computer monitors an electric motor and gas engine. "I'm not a very technologically advanced person," said Austin. "But I think this is a wonderful car."

How a divorced mother of two found her way to a hybrid auto reflects a quiet trend on Indiana and America's roads. High-tech cars appeal to more than the technologically proficient.

Stung by rising gasoline prices, everyday commuters are demanding fuel efficiency, much like Austin, who drives 140 miles between her home in Peru, in north-central Indiana, and her Indianapolis job.

Hybrids are outsold by more than 100 to 1 in Indianapolis and across the nation by gasoline-only autos, though they are catching on. They lay off the horsepower and pile up fuel economy because a computer under the hood decides to run the electric motor, the small gasoline engine, or the two together.

Costlier than conventional cars by $2,000 to $3,000, hybrids will appear in only about 70,000 new vehicles this year, potentially 150,000 next year, and possibly 1 million by 2010.

Beginning this fall and through 2007, Detroit and Japanese automakers catering to fuel-conscious consumers will bring out a dozen hybrid and fuel-efficient diesel models, including:

" A 2005 Dodge Ram pickup truck hybrid using a Cummins diesel.

" A 2005 Ford Escape sport-utility vehicle with a full gasoline hybrid.

" A 2005 Jeep Liberty CRD sport-ute with an Italian VM Motori diesel.

Full hybrids are powered by an electric motor backed by an engine. Mild hybrids rely on the engine with electric motor boosts for acceleration.

Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks equipped as mild hybrids began reaching dealers this summer, but neither is expected to sell in high volumes. Mild hybrids improve fuel economy in trucks about 10 percent compared to as much as 30 percent in full hybrids.

Engine experts say the electric motor would not appreciably boost that weight limit. This is one reason Dodge will bring out only about 100 Ram diesel hybrids this year. But as consumers learn about the fuel savings in hybrid and diesel cars and sport-utilities over the next few years, sales will grow, said physicist Henry Kelly, who worked on the U.S. government's Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, a 1990s collaboration of federal scientists and Detroit automotive engineers trying to develop an 80-mpg, $20,000 sedan.

The partnership couldn't engineer an affordable sedan, but it helped to launch hybrids and high-tech diesels as well as better fuel economy in the gasoline engine.

"Gasoline and diesel hybrids look more practical in the next few years and maybe over the long term," said Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington, D.C., research group.

One recent forecast by the U.S. Department of Energy suggests 9 percent of the expected 17 million new vehicles sold nationwide in 2008 will run on high-tech diesels, gas hybrids, or diesel hybrids.

That's 1.5 million new high-tech autos reaching the roads in four years. The could rise to 2.5 million to 3.9 million new autos a year by 2012, federal forecasters say.

"We think that's a pretty aggressive forecast," said alternative-engine expert Thad Malesh, a founder of Automotive Technology Research Group, a Los Angeles-area engine researcher.

Malesh dismisses the 15-percent hybrid figure.

"It's not that people out there aren't interested in hybrids," he said. "It's that the automakers have to get the hybrids into the right vehicle segments. The big factor that is limiting them is (factory) capacity."

Malesh anticipates a diesel boom, largely because they cost about $1,000 less than a hybrid with comparable fuel economy.

Diesel vs. hybrid

The new 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid is expected to sell 17,000 models this year, and as many as 80,000 next year, but the proposed 2007 diesel Escape could outsell its hybrid counterpart that year, Malesh said.

Diesel maker Cummins Inc. of Columbus, Ind., appears to be Ford's choice for the Escape diesel if Ford rules out its own assembly, Malesh said. "We have the technology," said Cummins spokesman Mark Land, pointing out no Ford orders have come in so far.

What has set off the interest in hybrids among automakers is consumers clamoring about gas prices. As pump prices nationwide climbed in 2001, last summer and this summer, hybrids offered a sure way to improve mileage. And they were already on the market, though in limited numbers.

In 1999, the Honda Insight hybrid was exported for the first time from Japan to the United States. It targeted largely West Coast environmentalists at a time when the Detroit automakers were rolling out high-profit luxury trucks such as the Lincoln Navigator, rated at 11 mpg in city driving.

Within three years, Detroit automakers sensed a growing trend and joined the chase.

As gas prices surpass $2 a gallon this year, Detroit is getting a first-hand lesson in marketing and targeting hybrids -- in cars driven by long-distance commuters, like Lynn Austin.

Employed by Medcor Inc. as a nurse at retailer Target Inc.'s distribution center on Far Westside of Indianapolis, she refilled her 31-miles-per-gallon Sephia's gas tank twice a week. The Peru commute that had cost about $25 a week a few years ago had shot up to more than $40.

After a Target colleague last spring bought a new Toyota Prius, she decided to trade in her elderly Chevrolet Tracker, a small sport-ute with 80,000 miles on the odometer she had kept as a backup for the 97,000-mile Sephia. With tax refund check in hand, she went to a Toyota dealership in Indianapolis in April, but found hybrids in tight supply.

"They said, 'They go pretty fast. You have to get on a waiting list.' I thought, 'I can't wait. The Tracker has to go now.' "

Trading the sport-ute for a 2004 Toyota Corolla with a regular engine, Austin soon put 12,000 miles on the new car. Though the mileage seemed decent -- 38 mpg highway -- she longed for a hybrid's 51 mpg.

Deciding her son, Derek Caspar of Noblesville, could take over some Corolla payments, Austin visited a Honda dealer in Indianapolis. Only one new Civic Hybrid was on the lot and it had a stick shift.

"I really liked it," Austin said. "I told them I didn't want a stick. I told them they should call me as soon as an automatic comes in."

Two weeks later, she had her hybrid. She soon found the rated and real-world mileage differ. Driving her daughter, Darci, 16, through Tennessee mountains, Austin watched the mpg dial in the dash.

"I didn't get very good gas mileage going 70, 75 miles an hour. I was getting in the low 40s. But I'd just gotten the car and I didn't know how to drive it as well," Austin said.

Drive more slowly

One lesson was to go 55 to 65 miles an hour. Higher speeds revved up the gas engine. Another was to turn off the cruise control in the mountains. It raced the engine and drained gas going uphill.

While the hybrid accelerates as quickly as a gasoline model, 51 mpg has been elusive on her daily commute -- 48 mpg is more common.

"I'm more of a lead-foot than I thought," Austin said. "It's a game I play in the car. How much mileage can I get today?"

Because she drives more than 35,000 miles a year, and gas prices have climbed, Austin figures she has a deal in the hybrid.

A conventional 2004 Civic EX with a 1.7-liter engine generally sells for $17,442 in the Indianapolis area, estimates the automotive Web site Edmunds.com, while an '04 Civic Hybrid goes for $19,232 including the $1,500 U.S. tax credit for new hybrid.

Austin doesn't mind the hybrid's $1,792 higher cost. She expects fuel savings on her 35,000-mile annual commute.

Her 48-mpg hybrid will burn 729 gallons of gas over 35,000 miles, running up a $1,276 fuel bill at an average pump price of $1.75 a gallon. The 35-mpg Civic EX would require $1,750 in fuel.

Since the hybrid costs $474 less to refuel each year than the conventional car, the savings would pay for the hybrid's $1,792 higher price in about three years, nine months.

"Instead of filling up every other day, I'm filling up at the most twice a week," Austin said. "That's a deal."

SOURCE: IndyStar.com

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