Flex-fuel vehicle customers starting to surface in Northwest Indiana

Chevy dealer Tom Brown noticed it about the time gas prices began spiking to $3 a gallon -- customers asking for E85-equipped vehicles.

"Consumers are aware of it," said Brown, a 22-year auto business veteran and sales manager at Carroll Chevrolet in Crown Point.

"I've had people coming in looking at E85 vehicles, and buying some."

High gas prices are fueling interest in vehicles equipped to handle the mix -- 85-percent ethanol, 15-percent petroleum -- known as E85, as well as various other combinations of renewable and fossil-based fuels.

"It's only been this year," Brown added. "Last year, basically nobody was aware this was coming online."

Often, customers are looking for a way to reduce fuel costs but aren't sure how flex-fuel vehicles fit into the picture.

"We're getting a lot of customers who are fuel conscious," said Bill Bebon, general sales manager at Kennedy Mazda in Valparaiso. "But I've not heard of anybody specifically asking for (the E85) combination."

A survey by Chicago-based Web site Cars.com found that 46 percent of car buyers said they didn't know enough about alternative fuels like ethanol to consider flex-fuel vehicles for purchase.

Automakers GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler are producing vehicles with engines and parts equipped to handle high-percentage ethanol fuels.

There are a number of reasons to buy E85 vehicles, Car.com spokesman Steve Nolan said. But given current costs of E85 fuel, savings at the pump isn't necessarily one of them, Nolan said.

A Cars.com look at 2006 flex fuel vehicles found most cars got better milage with gasoline than with E85.

The price of the 85-percent ethanol mix could go down in the future, he added. And consumers with flex fuel vehicles could find themselves in the driver's seat.

"They'll have the option of whether to buy gasoline or ethanol, depending on what's cheaper," Nolan said.

Christensen Chevrolet in Highland has seen an upswing in customers asking for E85 vehicles, especially since the February start of a GM promotion offering a $1,000 gas card to flex-fuel vehicle buyers, sales manager Gary Roberson said.

"Customers reacted very favorably," Roberson said. "The problem is there aren't many gas stations that offer E85 right now."

Gas City stations in Hammond, Hobart and Dyer are the only Northwest Indiana area providers of E85, according to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition, which tracks stations nationwide.

General Motors Corp. and Meijer Inc., with stores in Highland, Merrillville and Michigan City locally, jointly announced plans earlier this month to cooperate to make ethanol-based fuel available at the discount chain's gas stations in Indiana.

Nationwide, the number of E85 stations doubled in the last year, to 715, the coalition's communications director, Michelle Kautz, said.

Indiana now has one ethanol plant, operated by New Energy Corp., in South Bend. Eight ethanol plants and three biofuel plants are under development in the state, including the Iroquois Bio-Energy plant outside Rensselaer.

At least two dozen others are being considered by developers, according to the Indiana Economic Development Corp.