The Gulf of Mexico accounts for about 25% of the nation's energy production, while refineries hit by the storm account for nearly 10% of the nation's refining capacity.

At least five big Gulf Coast refineries also remained shut, as was the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, or LOOP -- the nation's only deepwater oil terminal.

The LOOP typically receives tankers delivering about 1 million barrels of crude oil a day, or 10% of the nation's imported crude.

"There's no question gas will hit $4 a gallon," Ben Brockwell, director of pricing at the Oil Price Information Service, said. "The question is how high will it go and how long will it last?"

OPIS tracks wholesale and retail oil prices and provides pricing information for AAA's daily reports on fuel prices.

Brockwell said with gasoline prices now exceeding $3 a gallon before even reaching the wholesale level, it "doesn't take a genius" to expect retail prices to hit $4 a gallon soon.

"Consumers haven't seen the worst of it yet," Brockwell said.

Bodman, speaking on CNBC television, today said the government can meet a request for oil by tomorrow. He said domestic gasoline supplies are a ``concern.''

``It certainly has got to have a dampening effect'' on prices, said Tony Machacek, a broker at Bache Financial Ltd. in London. ``It will help, but whether it's enough to keep the market down in the long term remains to be seen.''

"We expect prices to jump at least 15 cents a gallon in Florida, depending on the damage as a result of the storm" to Gulf of Mexico oil refineries and shipping channels, said Jake Bournazian, an economist for the Energy Information Administration. "We don't know the full magnitude until damage is assessed."

A 15-cent-a-gallon increase would boost the average Florida price of regular unleaded to $2.78 and the price of premium to $3.05. Experts say higher retail gas prices could show up within days, as the price of a barrel of crude oil closed Monday up $1.07 at $67.20, after hitting $70.80 a barrel earlier in the day.

The car will be officially a concept, but BMW will hurry it into production as a rival to the new Porsche Cayman S, a coupe version of the Boxster. Like its predecessor, the Z3-based M Coupe, it will be built at BMW's Spartanburg factory in the South Carolina. But unlike the boxy M Coupe, the Z4 coupe will be a more conventional fastback coupe, with styling similar to the Xcoupe concept of a couple of years ago.

The Z4 Coupe will be powered by BMW's 255-horsepower, 3.0-liter, inline six-cylinder gasoline engine. There also will be an M version with a 3.2-liter inline six from the M3, upgraded to 360 hp.

Gas prices jumped ten cents over the weekend, meaning at most places in Lubbock you'll pay $2.44 to $2.49 for a gallon of regular unleaded-- that's the highest they've ever been. Regardless, thousands filled up before dropping their kids off for the first day of school. NewsChannel 11 found the latest trend among parents is carpooling.

With hundreds of students heading back to school, the latest trend has nothing to do with clothes or shoes, it's carpooling.

The Daily News, Greenville, Mich., in an editorial: "What always has amazed us is how price fluctuations can affect gas already received and in underground tanks. ... Whenever an appliance store receives a new shipment of refrigerators, it doesn't ... increase the prices on all the refrigerators already out on the floor. The same goes for books and many other retail items. It is only once the old are sold that the new, higher price kicks in. Why then is gas so special? That's the $2.499 question."

So far, DaimlerChrysler AG is the only company that has committed to building its own plug-in hybrids, quietly pledging to make up to 40 vans for U.S. companies. But Toyota Motor Corp. officials who initially frowned on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them.

"They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories," said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. "Maybe the hot rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what they can do about increasing fuel economy."

The extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas and electricity. Even after the car runs out of power from the batteries and switches to the standard hybrid mode, it gets the typical Prius fuel efficiency of around 45 mpg. As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a day, he says, he gets 80 mpg.

The rear view system now available on nearly every model in the Nissan range eliminates the worst blind spot during reversing i.e. what's beneath your rear window. But there's a second blind spot along both sides of the car. To eliminate this, side mounted cameras need to be fitted as they have been to the Presage model on sale in Japan since June 2003. Now Nissan is testing front mounted cameras. Even more amazing is that the driver sees an image on the dashboard mounted monitor as if he or she were looking down onto the car. It also shows up everything around it.

Cameras mounted at the front and rear and on both sides take pictures of the surrounding road surface, which are synthesized by an image processing technique into one view that is shown on a central display. The system is especially helpful when parking, enabling the driver to steer easily and precisely into a parking space. It also eliminates any fear of running over the neighbour's prized belongings or posts or animals or anything else for that matter.

Mr Ross said: "The lions will take an interest in peculiarities on cars and we always keep a close eye on the cars coming in.

"With Smart cars and sometimes Mini Coopers the lions definitely raise an eyebrow. It sparks their interest because of their size.

"We had an incident of two ladies in a car being chased by lionesses.

"It must have been quite frightening for them, but we always have staff in a vehicle by the lion enclosure to deal with any problems."

None of this detracts from the fact that many Americans, particularly those with fixed or low incomes, are feeling the pinch. But there are often few significant, affordable changes that can be made overnight, economists said.

"If somebody lives 20 miles from where they work and they have an SUV, they can't do very much about that in the short run," said Stephen P. Brown, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas. The savings from switching to a hybrid-electric vehicle would be negligible when the cost of the new car is factored in, he said.

Automakers see the possibility that used car sales could cut into new car sales, but are hoping the effect is minimized by a strong overall market for both. "It will wash itself out," predicts Paul Ballew, GM's director of global market and industry analysis, about the used car glut. On the flip side, buyers may get less for their trade-ins.

Buyers will see more recent-model used cars. The frenzied atmosphere of the employee-pricing deals has led more people to trade in even newer cars than usual, says Jack Nerad, editorial director for Kelley Blue Book.

Plus, dealers' new car inventories are depleted of the most popular models. "We're going to have big used car sales this month. We have to. We don't have anything else to sell," says Jack Fitzgerald, who owns dealerships in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Over the next few weeks, the EIA said a recent 21-cent rise in gasoline spot prices will be passed on to consumers at the retail level.

So far, only about 8 cents of that increase has made it into the pump price, the agency said.

"It takes about 2 weeks for changes in the spot price of gasoline to begin to show up at the pump and it is mostly passed through after 4 weeks," the EIA said. "This implies more price increases lie ahead for the next few weeks."

The agency said that after the Labor Day holiday in early September gasoline prices often decline as fuel demand drops when people go back to school and work.

However, the EIA warned that with a government forecast of an active hurricane season this year, gasoline prices "could continue to surge" beyond Labor Day if a major storm disrupts supplies in the Gulf of Mexico or more oil refinery outages occur.

Invented by a police officer, the PowerFlare safety light is your best friend in the dark. Whether you're using it on the road instead of old-fashioned flares or taking it with you on a hike, this innovative new product is for you. PowerFlare safety lights feature the latest in LED light technology, emitting light in all directions (can be seen for miles at night). Each PowerFlare unit is about the size of a hockey puck yet is strong enough to withstand being run over by trucks at highway speeds.

These modes of transport are almost silent therefore reducing noise pollution as well as exhaust pollution. The price per kilometre is 6 times less than that of petrol or diesel. When you are standing at traffic lights these vehicles don?t consume any energy, so no need to argue about whether its more or less efficient to turn the engine off and on at traffic lights. And did I mention that they can be recharged by solar power? Oh yes, yes I did! To be honest these little get-abouts aren?t really designed for the open road, but they do make it up to 50 Km per hour which is perfectly respectable for getting around town. Eco-car are based in Barcelona and are part of the Elektron Group.

That would require a significant increase in U.S. hybrid sales. A total of 83,153 hybrids were sold in the United States last year, according to R.L. Polk & Co., a Southfield, Mich. -- based firm that collects and interprets automotive data. The Toyota Prius hybrid dominated that market, with 53,761 new Prius cars registered.

Press said Toyota will meet its goal by aggressively introducing new hybrid versions of its lineup. The company launched two hybrid sport utility vehicles this year -- the Lexus RX 400h hybrid in April and the Toyota Highlander hybrid in June -- and will introduce hybrid versions of the Lexus GS sedan and the Toyota Camry next year.

In addition, Press said Toyota has 10 hybrids under development.