http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=6561...ionid=351020103

Iran's hybrid car production booming
Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:10:51


Iranian companies have increased production of dual-fuel vehicles as part of the general plan to manufacture less gasoline-powered cars.

“Iranian automakers have produced more than 120,000 vehicles that use natural gas and regular gasoline in the first quarter of the current (Iranian calendar) year (March 20-July 21),” Iranian Minister of Industries and Mines Ali-Akbar Mehrabian said on Sunday in Tehran.

Iranian car manufacturers, including the country's number one automaker Iran Khodro, have increased production of cars that utilize both gasoline and compressed natural gas (CNG) by about 20-fold over the past two years.

“Hybrid car production rose to 429,000 last year from 20,000 two years ago,” Mehrabian said at Iran's first national conference on CNG, which was held in the capital from August 2 to 3.

The boom in hybrid car production has been encouraged by the government to reduce dependence on gasoline.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, lacks adequate refining capacity to produce gasoline and spends huge sums on imports, which burdens state coffers.

The country introduced a gasoline rationing program in June 2007 to reduce the excessive gasoline consumption.

"Sixty percent of passenger cars produced this year will use natural gas as fuel or will be dual-fuel, and the remaining 40 percent will run on regular gasoline," read a cabinet statement released in June 2008.

The decision, applying to Iranian calendar year 1387 (ends March 20, 2009) came in the wake of sweeping revisions announced in the gasoline rationing plan on June 7 .

Among the changes was a measure that required owners of luxury vehicles to purchase premium gasoline at market prices as of June 21 instead of heavily subsidized regular unleaded fuel.

MK/HGL