European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 17, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Cost Lor unleaded regular which cons Lilles half his sales 12 cents a gallon on unleaded Premium which is 30 Pereen of his sales and 4 cents a gallon on unleaded 3 percent of sales. Tho Olner 17 percent is Diese Fuei company operated stations As opposed to stations like Clancy a which Are owned by o major Oil company but leased to an operator work on oven thinner margins. And some of the 40,000 or so convenience stores that sell gasoline do so at a loss using Gas As a so called loss Leader to sell milk and dog food. Convenience stores sell about 22 percent of All gasoline up from one percent in 976, according to Vic Rasheed executive director o the service station dealers which has 60,000 members. Their share is still growing a said and tha pressure they Pul on full service dealers contributes to the Industry s problems. Tight margins Are Only part of the problem for a dealer like Clancy. The other Day in Between greeting the customers whose loyalty he grooms he ran through these changes All More or less typical of the problems of stations like his around the country the rent he pays Texaco has quintuple. He declined to give the numbers. The attendants he used to hire for minimum wage less than $2 an hour Row make $6. The waste Oil he sold Lor 25 cents a gallon now costs 40 cents a gallon to dispose of because of environmental regulations the 1q-w-30 Oil thai he Sells Lor $2 25 a quart is available from discount stores for As Little As 90 cents a Price he cannot match and that has Cul into his sales. The Gas pump nozzles that Texaco used to replace Are now his responsibility they Cost $30 to $50 each and have to be replaced three limes a year. Ron Clancy cleans a customer s Wendth let at Hla full serve of gasoline station in Brock too Mas. Texaco which used to pay he 100 cents on the Dollar Lor purchases charged on ils credit cards at its station now pays him Only 97 cents. The gasoline thai makes up his inventory used to Cost him $1,200 or $1,500, and now runs 110,000, and the interest rate is higher. He cannot increase his margins because he is already priced above the Competition said Clancy some of that Competition is a High volume self serve station run directly by Texaco and such head to head contests Between a retailer and his supplier turned retailer Are common. Clancy too has used giveaways to draw in new business although he is not doing so now a spokesman for Texaco Phil Blackburn put a different face on the situation of the company s retailers. The dealer is in a stronger position now because there Are fewer stations and More cars " he added that the average Dematei now is a belter businessman than he was a few years ago and now has the option of several lines of business including convenience stores and car washes. Rents have gone up of course and that reflects mat the value of the properties has gone up Sard Blackburn the 3 percent fee on credit cards he said is to recover the Cost of providing credit indeed Clancy s Long term str Algy has been to diversify Selling ires emphasizing mechanical work lowing arranging with body shops and Glass specialists 1o fix his customers cars renting cars Selling sodas. Candy co fee cigarettes and ice ram vending machines Clancy would like to buy his Slation from Texaco and insure its future but he is ambivalent about handing it on to one of his Lour children. I Hope my kids aspire to bigger and boiler things he said. E 90s infrared Energy a sensor responsive to those wavelengths can Pul together a heal picture of objects in its View. Thai picture can be translated into an image on a video screen. These heal pictures Are not exactly the same As those produced by visible Light Diller enl objects Emit different amounts of Light at the same temperature depending upon the characteristics of their surfaces but heal pictures Are usually Good enough to produce useful images. The equipment is sensitive enough to Delell temperature differences Ashi lie As one tenth of a degree centigrade. A it Alt depends on the temperature and Emissivity of the objects involved said Harvey a. Burley an g Engineer in pm s advanced product engineering group. There Aie enough differences in the temperatures n and Emissivities of most objects to form re Alively detailed pictures of what is in front of a car driving Down a Road the engineers say. The Road the grass beside a the read. He Light pole alongside the Road Are All slightly different when you  Burley said. An infrared sensor is similar to an optical camera except that its lenses Are made of materials like germanium that Are transparent to infrared radiation and the image is focused on a Silicon Chip treated to make it infrared sensitive the Chip has been Cross arched into thousands of different picture elements or pixels the differing amount of radiation falling on each Pixel produces a different voltage. The image processing system sweeps rapidly across the Chip of end the shitting pattern of voltages and convert that information to a moving member 17, 1987 image on a television like screen. Infrared sensors developed for military use Are Ollen linked to a lamp thai shines a beam in the 10-Micron Range at Likely targets to create a reflection. The systems being tested by pm though Are passive. Rather than illuminating objects they simply measure what is received through the Opica system. In the experimental vehicles being evaluated by pm the night vision pictures Are displayed on a cathode Ray tube that has a flattened screen and is capable of simple color displays. Engineers anticipate that such displays will replace the Standard array of gauges on automobile instrument panels by the Lime the infrared system is ready Lor introduction. One experimental project has the tube replacing the instrument in the Center of the dashboard. The Driver controls tha display on the lube by selecting irom a menu of options at the Edge of the image. The selection is n Ade by using switches on the Center pad of the steering wheel. The switches function like cursor controls on a word processor allowing the Driver to move up. Down or sideways on the menu by pressing an Arrow. The options include Healing and Cooling controls gauges radio cellular Telephone and the vision system. In most of the displays the time Speed and fuel gauge Are shown across the top of the screen Tor easy viewing when the night vision screen is called up they drop to the Bottom of the display so the Driver can immediately see what is in front of the Auto. Pm s night vision system is a Long Way from being put into use the infrared mechanism is so Large that it has to be mounted in a big Metal Box a i cached to a car s roof. One reason is that the sensor Chip is cooled to 70 degrees be fam or 70 degrees above absolute Zero by liquid nitrogen to suppress the electromagnetic interference or noise emitted by the system i sell due to ils own heal indeed representatives of the Ford motor co and the Chrysler corp. Said they considered such technology so Lar from practical Automo ivc application thai they were not paying much attention to it. But pm s engineers said that military needs were forcing the Pace of technology development in infrared imaging and thai the benefits of those advances would spill Over into civilian uses pm s link to military development is through its Hughes aircraft subsidiary. Developments in semiconductors May make uncooked systems practical within a few years. Burley said ii May be possible to use a semiconductor with an amplifier on every element As the key sensor in an uncooked system if present development trends continue according to Burley. This would also help miniaturized the Detector. Ultimately the engineers concede it May not be possible to reduce the costs of infrared imaging systems to the Point where they would be prac Icahn a family car Cost is what is keeping the computer navigate action systems already developed out of the current crop of autos but will cars becoming More alike in size and design lop Auto company executives Are looking increasingly to electronics Lor features that will distinguish one Model from another. A reasonably priced Ghl vision option that combines a gee Whiz Factor with practical advances in safety would f l that description nicely. The stars and stripes pags15