In a stuffy Marina del Rey hotel meeting room Thursday night, Taylor Rivera spoke excitedly about a gas-saving additive he'd discovered a few months before.
"I normally get 255 miles to the tank," said Rivera, who drives a Porsche SUV. After popping the gas additive BioPerformance Fuel into his tank several times, he said, "my mileage jumped up to 305. I didn't research it, but it worked for me, so I shared it with my friends."
Using colorful anecdotes, Rivera and three of his friends who also were there to tout the product told the small audience how they increased their mileage 10% to 30% using BioPerformance.
But neither Rivera nor his friends could explain how BioPerformance Fuel lowered emissions or increased gas mileage, citing only anecdotal evidence and referring questions to the company's website. They could not provide the corporate office's phone number -- which was also not available on the website -- explaining that the company does all of its business online.
Rivera is one of many independent distributors around the nation selling BioPerformance Fuel, which is sold in a pill or powder. According to its website, BioPerformance Inc., with corporate headquarters in Irving, Texas, started in December 2005 and claims to have made more than $25 million in sales.
Skyrocketing gas prices have helped drive an industry promising better fuel efficiency in the form of pills, liquid additives and devices. There are fuel-line magnets that claim to change the molecular structure of gasoline and gas pills that increase the "calorific power" of a car's fuel system.
But auto experts, the Federal Trade Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency have expressed skepticism about products that claim dramatic gas savings.
"Every year, when we go through a price increase in gasoline, there's a surge of interest in fuel economy enhancement devices," said Steve Mazor, director of the Automobile Club of Southern California's Automotive Research Center, which tests about a dozen products each year. "Most of the products that we test just plain don't do anything at all."
This year, with gas prices at more than $3 a gallon, Mazor said the organization had received more calls from consumers and manufacturers regarding gas-saving products.
The EPA has tested more than 100 products and add-on devices, finding most to be ineffective, said spokesman John Millett. In a few cases, products were found to increase exhaust emissions, potentially violating federal law on emissions tampering, according to the agency.
