By Timothy Gardner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said Monday it was accelerating efforts to coax U.S. gasoline filling stations to add pumps that sell ethanol-rich fuel after it bought a stake in a start-up company to make ethanol from sources like crop waste and old tires.
Mary Beth Stanek, GM's energy and environment director, said the company hoped over the next two or three years to help push 10,000 U.S. gasoline stations to add pumps that sell E85, a fuel mixture of 85 percent ethanol.
"We're getting pretty sophisticated on how this is done ... we have great relationships with ethanol producers, fuel retailers, and the state agencies who want this to happen," Stanek told the Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuels Summit in a telephone interview.
GM annually produces about 1 million "flex fuel" vehicles that run on either gasoline or ethanol fuel mixes like E85 as part of its alternative fueled vehicles program.
Stanek said GM helps service stations add the pumps by finding grant money to ease conversion costs. When new ethanol pumps go up, GM also contacts their flex fuel customers, letting them know new fuel options have opened near them.
In Miami, for instance, GM helped open ethanol pumps at U-Gas stations and sent postcards to its 5,000 flex fuel clients near the station.
E85 stations have been slow to develop as the percentage of U.S. cars that can use the fuel is still under 10 percent.
The stations are mainly concentrated in Minnesota and other Midwestern states where most U.S. ethanol is currently made from corn. The stations are beginning to spread to states like Texas that can easily receive shipments from the Midwest. Continued...
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