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Another gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle officially went on sale this month: the 2006 Mercury Mariner.

A virtual clone of the Ford Escape hybrid, this new Mercury model gives Ford Motor Co. its second hybrid vehicle and consumers a fourth hybrid SUV to choose among, as well as a seventh true hybrid vehicle overall.

Ford brought the first hybrid SUV to market with the Escape last year, and within the past two months, Toyota has added the Lexus RX 400h and the Toyota Highlander hybrids, both of which are on the same vehicle chassis with nearly identical drivetrains, yet significantly different exteriors.

Now comes the Mariner, which is closer in overall appearance to the Escape than the Lexus is to the Highlander. Underneath, the Escape and Mariner are identical, sharing the same hybrid drivetrain as well as chassis components.

Also like the rest of these newest hybrids, availability of the new Mariner will be severely limited. Manufacturers just don’t have enough production capacity to satisfy the growing demand for their hybrid vehicles, nor do they want to. Hybrids make little profit, if any, for their makers, and really are on the market more as a public-relations exercise than a serious attempt to decrease fuel consumption and save the atmosphere.

The Mariner’s availability is limited to online orders; consumers won’t find a stock of these sitting on any dealer’s lot. And as with the other hybrid SUVs, there will be long waiting list for the new Mariner. Ford spokesman SaidÖ DeepÖ said the company is “on track” to build 20,000 of the Escape hybrids this year, and plans to have about 2,000 of the Mariners on top of that. The company has said that annual production of the Mariner hybrid is expected to be about 4,000.

List price is $29,840, including freight, which puts the Mariner slightly above the Escape hybrid, which begins at $26,830 and ranges as high as $28,455 for model year 2005. But the price is well below those of the two Toyota hybrid SUVs. The Lexus starts at just under $50,000, and the Highlander begins at just over $33,000 and ranges to nearly $40,000.

That puts the current crop of hybrid SUVs in a price range from $27,000 to $50,000, while the three hybrid sedans on the market — the Honda Civic and Accord and the Toyota Prius — range from about $21,000 to just over $32,000.

Ford says that like the Escape’s system, the Mariner’s combination of four-cylinder gasoline engine and electric motor give it a combined 155 horsepower and 50 percent better fuel economy in city driving than a V-6 powered Escape or Mariner. Yet acceleration will be comparable to that of a V-6, the company said.

With two-wheel drive, the Escape’s EPA ratings are 36 miles per gallon in the city and 31 mpg on the highway; with the four-wheel-drive models, the figures are 33 city/29 highway. The Mariner, for now, will be offered only in the four-wheel-drive configuration.

As with most hybrids, the mileage for city driving is higher than for highway cruising because the vehicle is designed to shut off its gasoline engine during stops and to start up only on electric power until reaching a certain speed, which can be up to 25 mph. This arrangement not only improves fuel economy significantly during stop-and-go city driving, but also lowers tailpipe emissions by keeping the gasoline engine off when the vehicle is stopped, such as at traffic signals or in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Idling engines are a large source of pollution in large cities where traffic is heavy.

The onboard battery pack is being recharged whenever the gasoline engine is running, when the car is braking, or when the car is coasting. As with other gasoline-electric hybrids, the car never has to be “plugged in” to an external power source for recharging of the batteries, which is the biggest problem with pure electric-powered vehicles.

The biggest questions many consumers have about the hybrids is how long the battery packs will last, and how much will it cost to replace them when they wear out. Now, it costs about $5,000 for a replacement battery pack for most hybrids, but the ones that come with the cars generally are are guaranteed to last for 10 years. By that time, the manufacturers say, the prices for replacement batteries probably will have dropped significantly.

Ford’s hybrid drive system is similar to that of Toyota’s, but completely different from Honda’s. Ford and Toyota hybrids are designed to run either on gasoline or electric power, while the Honda vehicles use gasoline power all of the time, with the electric motor being used to supplement the power of the gasoline engine.

Although Ford developed its own hybrid system and did not copy any of Toyota’s processes, the final Ford system was so similar in many ways to Toyota’s that Ford licensed 20 hybrid-drive patents from Toyota to avoid potential patent-infringement claims. But Toyota and Ford both acknowledge that the Escape and Mariner do not use any Toyota hybrid-drive components. Ford’s are made by the Japanese automotive supplier Aisin, according to Ford spokesman Deep.

“All of the programming and software for our system was created by Ford,” he said. “We have more than 80 patents either issued or pending for our system.”

Ford’s system “provides full electric-drive capability much like Toyota’s,” said Tom Watson, Ford’s manager of hybrid programs. “There are many similarities, but Ford designed its system independently, and the arrangement of our motors and our power electronics are different.”

Toyota’s big Japanese rival Nissan, however, has directly purchased Toyota’s hybrid-drive system for its own line of hybrid cars, beginning with the Altima sedan hybrid due out later this year. Nissan chose to use Toyota’s already-developed system rather than wait for its own engineers to develop a hybrid drivetrain, which would have taken longer.

As for the Mariner hybrid, don’t expect to see any of them on the road anytime soon. The company began taking orders for them from consumers this past week, but doesn’t plan to begin delivering the vehicles until late October or early November. Those who want a hybird SUV before then would have to try for an Escape, Highlander or RX 400h, but waiting lists for those vehicles already are several months long.

Marketing plans call for the Mariner hybrid to be aimed at “environmentally conscious consumers who are also looking for a smart, sophisticated and stylish vehicle,” Ford said in a news release announcing the beginning of sales.

“Initial advertising will be online with web banners on specific sections of Yahoo and Google as well as home page ‘takeovers’ of Edmunds.com and CBSNews.com,” the company said. “In addition, the Mercury Mariner hybrid will have a presence on the websites of key environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and National Geographic.”

Standard equipment on the Mariner hybrid, besides four-wheel drive, will include power four-wheel disc antilock brakes; power windows/mirrors/door locks with remote control; leather-wrapped steering wheel; electric power steering; unique 16-inch aluminum wheels; AM/FM/in-dash CD changer with six speakers; front fog lights; air conditioning; privacy glass; six-way power driver’s seat; cruise control; roof rack; and anti-theft system.

G. Chambers Williams III is staff automotive columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and former transportation writer for the Star-Telegram. His automotive columns have appeared regularly in the Star-Telegram since 1995. Contact him at (210) 250-3236; chambers@star-telegram.com.