The following appeared a few weeks ago in a Baltimore Sun article addressing green cars in general:<br><br>Federal regulations should start making SULEV and low-sulfur gasoline choices more common by about 2004 (even the currently available Prius needs low-sulfur gas to meet the nitrogen-busting SULEV standard).<br><br>Can anyone confirm that the Prius needs low-sulfur fuel to attain SULEV performance levels?

Prius was certified to SULEV on California gasoline (which is low sulfur). Sulfur is a poison to catalyst systems and if the fuel in your area is high sulfur, emissions performace will deteriorate. This effect is somewhat, but not completely reversible when going back to low sulfur fuel. <br><br>Just to clarify, SULEV is an HC and NOx busting rule, not nitrogen.<br><br>Dave

Dave,<br><br> Can you clarify what high sulfur is in terms of PPM. In my area the average sulfur content is<br>360PPM. By 2003 it will go down to 150PPM which<br>I believe Californians and some Northeastern states already have. So as I understood I am harming my catalyst with this and once I have <br>low sulfur gas in my area it is partially reversible?

CA fuel averages 30 ppm, with a cap at 80 (I think). Yes, as you burn your 360 ppm fuel it is slowly poisoning the catalyst and some amount of the stored sulfur will go away when burning cleaner fuel.<br><br>Dave

For those in Oregon, is low sulfer gas available in the Portland Metro area?