U.S. Automakers To Push ‘Green Technology’ Companies Hurry To Counter Environmental Marketing Push By Japanese Car Builders

U.S. automakers will use next week’s North American International Auto Show to trumpet billion-dollar research programs designed to slash fuel consumption and emissions, trying to blunt a “green” marketing push by Japanese automakers.

General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. are still smarting from October’s Tokyo Motor Show, where Toyota Motor Co. grabbed headlines with its Prius, the world’s first production car with electric and gasoline motors operating in tandem. The Prius travels 66 miles on a gallon of fuel with half the carbon dioxide emissions as gas-only cars.

In a departure from their usual mix of angry attacks on regulators and talk of distant technology, U.S. automakers will show off a number of new or possible reduced-pollution vehicles at the Detroit show.

“The Detroit companies get beat up because they’re always on the defensive, always saying new regulations could have a huge impact on employment, and so on. Now they’re switching to offense,” said David Cole, a University of Michigan researcher.

The change in approach by the automakers may signal a belief that they can build low-pollution cars and turn a profit too. The automakers of course do hope that showing real hardware will blunt pressure for new government mandates. The California Air Resources Board, for example, wants light trucks to be regulated like cars by 2004, instead of being allowed to generate three times more smog-causing emissions.

For today’s buyers, automakers will introduce big cars and trucks that are only slightly friendlier to the environment than their predecessors. For tomorrow’s buyers, they’ll showcase products developed in their search for alternatives to the internal combustion engine.

Still, it would be wrong to think of the Detroit show as completely green. GM will introduce new pickups. Chrysler will introduce big luxury cars. Toyota will introduce a new sport utility vehicle, and Honda Motor Corp. will introduce a new minivan. These large vehicles typically carry impressive profits but hurt the automakers’ overall fleet mileage averages.

Ford’s biggest short-term profit push, for example, will come from Super Duty commercial pickups. They come with an optional 275-horsepower V-10 gas engine that’s more efficient than the V-8 it replaces, but that gets 14 miles to a gallon.

The parade of green products follows this month’s international conference in Kyoto, Japan, where nations promised to lower emissions that contribute to global warming. Honda has begun running television advertisements using household cleaner mascot Mr. Clean to promote the efficiency of its fleet, and Toyota’s Prius announcement put it in the forefront of moving a promising new technology into mass production.

U.S. automakers, however, are concerned that Prius raises the stakes too high. Its $17,000 sticker price covers only about half its cost of production, analysts estimate. “If we sell at a loss, it robs our shareholders and it robs other research,” said Tom Gale, executive vice president at Chrysler. He worries that Japanese automakers inflate their environmental prowess to goad U.S. regulators in a way that hurts Detroit-based automakers.

Plus, demand for the products isn’t clear. U.S. consumers don’t want small cars - they want vehicles that are big enough and flexible enough to accommodate family, work and leisure, said Jacques Nasser, president of Ford Automotive Operations. “I have a real problem with market distortions, in which specialized interests try to dictate to the market through regulation or intimidation,” Nasser said. Still, Detroit automakers have earmarked $2.5 billion for green research and their technology matches anybody’s, said Amory Lovins, a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado. Ford is expected to display an aluminum Taurus-size car weighing 2,000 pounds, compared to 3,318 for a current model. It’s powered by 1.2-liter, direct injection diesel engine, supplemented by a small electric motor. It gets 65 miles a gallon and travels just as far and fast as today’s models. Ford expects to sell such a car in about five years.

In addition, Ford is expected to announce it’s equipping 1999-model vehicles sold nationwide, including the Windstar minivans, with advanced fuel-monitoring and catalytic converter systems. They’ll qualify as “low-emission vehicles,” based on California criteria, which limit hydrocarbon emissions to 70 percent below the most stringent federal requirements.

GM will highlight nickel-metal-hydride batteries, which double the cruising range of EV-1 electric vehicles to 150 miles, more than most daily commutes. It will highlight its investment in fuel cells, or devices that create energy by mixing hydrogen and oxygen.

The company will also display a technology called “flywheel alternator starter input differential.” It’s an electric motor attached to a modified truck transmission. It starts the truck, helps it accelerate, powers the accessories, and recharges its battery by recapturing energy created during braking. It could appear on some production models as soon as 2001.

Chrysler is expected to unveil a bigger version of its ESX hybrid, which has a handful of reinforced body panels molded from thermoplastic polyester.