WNIJ Report - Environmental cars hit the road in Northern Illinois

Original broadcast: Friday, August 8, 2008. Click blog title for audio.

Transcript:

Newer, more fuel efficient cars are appearing more in the DeKalb and Rockford area.

With the price of gas still hovering around four dollars a gallon, what can people do to cut down their consumption?

Kelly Epperson of Rockford downsized the amount she pays at the pump, by downsizing her car.

Her new white and black Smart Car is not a hybrid. It’s just smaller and more fuel efficient. The front of the car is smaller because the engine is in the back of the car. That might be a problem for someone in the backseat – except that there is no back seat.

Kelly says that she has received a lot more attention because of the car. As she took me for a ride one afternoon, several people did double-takes as we drove by.

WNIJ: And there's another family at a crosswalk, that just pointed. "Would you look at that?"
Epperson: I used to think it was rude that people would gawk and point and stare. Now I think it's just funny.
WNIJ: Now you're living it up
Epperson: Yeah.

Kelly first wanted to own a Smart car while her family was living in France. At first she thought they looked cute, fun and different. But as we pulled into a gas station, it’s clear that there were some other advantages. Kelly only paid 38 dollars to fill up her tank – and that’s with premium.

These days, people are just as likely to ask Kelly about the Smart Car’s gas mileage as they are about its size.

Epperson: The other day I was at an intersection. Some lady in a big old Suburban was next to me and that was her first question, "What do you pay to fill that thing up?" I said, "Well, I got the good gas and it was less than $40 fill up. " And she was like [gasps], because she pays $100 or whatever to fill up her thing, and I can go and go forever.

Kelly is not the only one who is buying a new vehicle better suited for the higher gas prices. The Northern Illinois University Board of Trustees just approved the order of 18 new hybrid cars. The school already has 24 hybrids among their fleet of 240 vehicles.

Bill Finucane is the Transportation Manager at NIU, and he says that since the school started replacing vehicles with hybrids, they’ve saved more than 67,000 gallons of gas.

Finucane: We've tried to take the lead. We have the largest hybrid fleet of any state agency in Illinois. With the purchase of 18 more hybrids, we're going to jump light years ahead of everybody else. U of I in Champaign for example has one, and that's it. And they have a much bigger fleet.

But while some are cutting down on the gas their cars use, some are cutting it out all together.

Bob and Sonia Vogl are board members with the Illinois Renewable Energy association. They’ve met a number of people who have modified their vehicles to be gas-free.

Bob Vogl: As part of our energy fair, we have people who have electric vehicles. We have one fellow who has a pick-up truck that he converted to electric.
Sonia Vogl: And we have some that run on bio-diesel. Some of the people make their own bio-diesel. One of them just uses used cooking oil, filters it and runs his vehicle on it.

People can see these cars and other ways of using renewable energy at home at the Illinois Renewable Energy Fair this weekend at the Ogle Country Fairgrounds.