Cost Of Owning, Driving Car Is $6,389 A Year, Says AAA

DETROIT - The cost of owning and driving a car averages $6,389 a year, $204 more than a year ago.

The American Automobile Association's annual report on the cost of new-car ownership blamed most of the increase on depreciation, which was up $97, insurance, up $63, and finance charges, which rose $32.

The auto club said the annual costs translate to 42.6 cents a mile, up 1.4 cents from the previous estimate. Other driving costs include fuel, oil and maintenance, registration fees and taxes.

AAA based its report on a composite national average of three domestically built 1996 cars: the compact Ford Escort LX, the midsize Ford Taurus GL and the full-size Chevrolet Caprice.

For the first time, the AAA report estimated costs for owning and operating a sport-utility vehicle. Using the 1996 Chevrolet Blazer, the survey pegged driving costs at 49.9 cents a mile.

The survey said driving costs for a minivan, based on the Dodge Caravan SE, are 44.6 cents a mile, up .8 cent from 1995.

Who's No. 1? Ford, Honda disagree on sales criteria

DETROIT - Every year, Honda and Ford fight over who builds the No. 1-selling car in the United States.

The Ford Taurus grabbed the official title from the Honda Accord in 1992 and has held it ever since.

But in numbers released this week, Honda says nearly half of Taurus sales - about 179,000 out of more than 366,000 last year - are low- to no-profit sales to fleet buyers, including the

Ford-owned Hertz rental-car company.

Honda says the Accord is the No. 1-selling car among individual buyers - those everyday customers who buy from their local Honda dealer.

Honda reaches that conclusion by using data on new-car registrations compiled by The Polk Co. Polk considers fleet sales to be any sale of five or more of the same vehicle to the same address. Weed those out and Taurus would slip to sixth place among sales to individual buyers.

Honda, suggesting that fleet sales are less-meaningful than sales to individual buyers, jabs Ford for boasting that it builds the No. 1-selling car. "It's nice to post the big year-end sales numbers on Jan. 1, but the retail registrations mean the most to us and to our bottom line," says Dick Colliver, senior vice president of Honda's sales division.

Ford says it has cut sales to rental-car fleets but says a sale is a sale. "No matter what color the car is, the color of the money is the same," jokes Joel Pitcoff, Ford sales analyst.

Science panel hits funding for fuel-economy research

WASHINGTON - Funding for research by the U.S. government and Big Three car manufacturers to triple the fuel economy of today's cars needs more focus, a panel of top scientists said this week.

The Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, created two years ago by the Clinton administration, set out to identify in 1997 the most promising technologies for designing and producing a model for a marketable car that could go 80 miles on a gallon of gas by 2004.

"Formidable technical barriers remain to meeting the program goals within the . . . schedule," a National Research Council committee said in its second progress report. Costs of making cutting-edge energy-storage systems, essential to improving the operating efficiency of cars, pose a major obstacle.

- Seattle Times news services