State to Be Test Ground for ‘Flexible Fuel’ Cars : Ford and GM Models Will Run on Gasoline, Ethanol or Methanol
Ford and General Motors plan to provide California with thousands of “flexible fuel” cars, able to run on either gasoline, methanol or ethanol, industry and state officials said Thursday.
Ford Chairman Donald E. Petersen said at a press conference here that Ford is negotiating a contract with the California Energy Commission to build 2,500 “flexible fuel” Ford Taurus cars over the next few years, which the state would place in both public and private fleets throughout California.
GM, meanwhile, has delivered the first of 2,220 Chevrolet Corsica and Chevrolet Lumina models with variable fuel engines to the state, according to Claudia Barker, a spokeswoman for the energy commission.
Pollution a Big Issue
Petersen’s comments came after the company’s annual meeting. Initially, he told reporters that Ford could be ready to mass produce such “flexible fuel” cars before 1995, but Ford public relations officials later tried to clarify Petersen’s remarks. They said Ford does not believe that it can be ready to produce large numbers of the experimental cars that soon.
Detroit’s cooperation in the flexible fuel test project indicates that the auto makers now realize that air pollution is again a hot political issue and that they are ready to make the development of alternative fuel vehicles a higher priority than before.
If the program is successful, broader production by the domestic auto makers could follow, leading to dramatic reductions in auto emissions. The flexible fuel cars in the test fleet will give off 50% less smog-producing emissions than comparable gas-only cars, Barker said.
To provide a fuel distribution network for the test fleet, Arco and Chevron have agreed with the state to install methanol pumps at 50 service stations throughout the state by year-end.
The energy commission is subsidizing the fleet at $200 to $300 per vehicle to be able to offer the cars to cities and businesses at the same prices charged for comparable gas-powered cars.
Ford and GM officials said the recent development of new fuel sensors has made it feasible to build the large test fleets on their assembly lines. The new technology has made it possible to power existing car engines--with only modest modifications--on either methanol, ethanol or gasoline, or even a mix of the different fuels.
But self-interest seems to play a part in the new interest at GM and Ford in methanol and ethanol-powered vehicles. Under a new regulation issued last year, auto makers that produce alternative fuel vehicles will be allowed to meet easier federal mileage standards for the gasoline-powered cars they build. Thus, producing flexible fuel cars could allow Ford and GM to continue to build large luxury cars that get low mileage.
With so much to gain, all of the U.S. auto firms have started ambitious public relations campaigns recently to tout their research into alternative fuel vehicles.
Petersen noted that building cars capable of running on either gas or methanol, or a mix of both, offers “a way around the problems of cars that just run on alternate fuels.” Consumer acceptance of such cars will be greater, he said, if the vehicles can be driven on methanol in smog-choked Southern California while maintaining the ability to switch to gasoline on long drives across the Midwest, where a methanol distribution network isn’t likely to be established soon.
