WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. automakers said Wednesday they will double production of flexible-fuel vehicles by 2010, adding vehicles capable of running on ethanol blends and other biofuels to reduce dependence upon foreign oil.
Leaders of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group wrote members of Congress about their plans, urging oil companies and lawmakers to promote the production of ethanol and biofuel and increase the number of fueling stations offering the fuels.
''Our hope is that with this commitment, fuel providers will have even more incentive to produce ethanol and other biofuels and install pumps to distribute them,'' the automakers wrote.
The letter was signed by Rick Wagoner, GM's chairman and chief executive; Bill Ford, Ford's chairman and chief executive; and Tom LaSorda, Chrysler Group's president and chief executive.
The Big Three automakers have produced 5 million flexible fuel vehicles, capable of running on gasoline and fuel blends of up to 85 percent ethanol, and are expected to produce an additional 1 million of the vehicles this year. Their commitment would lead to 2 million annually by 2010.
In meetings on Capitol Hill last month, Wagoner, Ford and LaSorda stressed their work on alternative fuels but highlighted the lack of service stations offering the fuels. Only about 700 of the 170,000 gasoline stations nationally offer E85 and most are concentrated in the Midwest.
They said if all the current flexible fuel vehicles were running on E85, ''they would displace more than 3.5 billion gallons of gasoline a year, or a full year of gas consumption in a state such as Missouri or Tennessee.''
GM and Ford said they could not immediately provide specifics of how they would increase production of the vehicles, which typically cost a few hundred dollars more to produce.
Chrysler said it would produce 500,000 of the vehicles by 2008; the automaker already builds a Jeep Liberty diesel model that is delivered with 5 percent biodiesel blended fuel.
Detroit automakers have sought support in the Bush administration and in Congress for the promotion of alternative fuels, more incentives to build the fueling stations and the continuation of incentives for automakers to build the vehicles.