The Cleanest Cars on Earth?: Honda Civic GX and Other Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs)
Clean Burning Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) are hot commodities in some parts of the country, where fuel can sell for as low as $0.63 per gallon.
Unlike the world’s most fuel efficient car (VW’s 285 MPG bullet), the Honda Civic GX looks like a standard passenger vehicle. What makes it special is what you don’t see: tailpipe emissions that are often cleaner than ambient air.
The Civic GX is powered by compressed natural gas—methane—the simplest and cleanest-burning hydrocarbon available. With an economical 113-hp, 1.8-Liter engine, the EPA has called the Civic the “world’s cleanest internal-combustion vehicle” with 90% cleaner emissions than the average gasoline-powered car on the road in 2004.
And get this: in Utah, natural gas can be purchased for $0.63 per gallon.
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At $24,590, buying a new Civic GX won’t exactly break your bank account, especially since up to $7,000 will come back to you in the form of state and federal tax credits. But don’t expect to find one easily. The car is only sold in two states, New York and California, and Honda can’t build them fast enough. One dealership said they have over 80 people waiting to buy.
This all sounds good, but in the meantime we need to Drill, Drill, Drill. We can drill our way out of this, we should have done so 30 years ago. I also do not want windmills every where. These new things will take 15 to 20 years to come about, in the meantime we must use what we have OIL.
What about the new clean diesels coming out? We can do this today. You get 20-40% better efficiency and the motors last forever. Don’t need anything to do this, just fill it up. VW is making affordable cars now for this.
I have not heard anyone here talk about re-sale of alternative technology vehicles. One key aspect of car economics is the relatively secure market to re-sell your vehicle for whatever reason (personally I hang on to mine for 10+ years).
If you paid out 24K for this car, what’s the chance that in 5 years its not a dinosaur?
Could its powertrain be easily converted to hydrogen, if H becomes the fuel of choice?
Weel now….If all these fun things are to be implemented, how do we get started? I hear all this talk but see little do. Tomorrow would be nice for us old farts that don’t expect to live for more than 5 or 10 years more, Giddyap!
B
My sister lives in Georgia and said the cost for her natural gas appliances have tripled in the last four years. She is seriously thinking about switching back to electricity. Perhaps the cost in Utah is 63 cents NOW but what would the cost be on the Left Coast or New York?
Electricity is really the answer. All of these other options are intriguing, but you need fueling stations that sell and supply different competing fuels, not to mention the industries that produce them. This follows the gasoline marketing paradigm. You will see multiple “middle-men” getting in line to run up the cost before it reaches the consumer. We need a break from this old school way of delivering energy. Energy needs to be delivered to the consumer with the fewest layers of separation.
Does anyone remember Betamax? I’d hate to be the guy who buys a alternate fuel vehicle and then watches it become obsolete when the forces of the market place squelch the less profitable fuel industries.
You need to focus on the common denominator. It’s clearly electricity. Every energy source that we have available (fossil, renewable, or nuclear) can be easily used to produce electricity with our existing infrastructure. It also allows for integration of future discoveries. Distribution is easy. We all have access to a power source. We’ll need to invest in our grid, but we need to do that anyway.
As previously noted by other comments, our demand will inevitably exceed our supply when it comes to carbon based fuel. We’ll then be back to this situation again. Hydrogen doesn’t make sense. Why use electricity to make hydrogen, so that we can burn it in our cars? Why not simply use the electricity to power the vehicle in the first place? The emissions are comparable, the safety issues are negligible in comparison, and there is significant energy loss in production and distribution of hydrogen. Natural gas provides a reasonable short term solution, but we need to keep our eyes on the ball. When it comes to ground transportation, the internal combustion engine will eventually go the way of the dodo.
The true is that american car companies do not want their cars to run on NG… main reason an auto that runs on NG virtually has no ware on its components. The carbon residue is clean compare to petroleum distillates so good by engine work. I have seen the change of oil on a NG engine and the old oil still looks likes honey.
How can we help get this done in Florida???
Convertint to natrual gas doesnt seem like a bad problem at all. My Parents just changed their oil furnace to gas jusc recientally. but the conversions shouldnt stop just there. I remember not to long ago i was watching on Discovery channel Modern Marvels or something a show on Green Technologies and one that really caught my interest was: Families are choosing now to bury compressor coils more then 6 feet under ground to use as a heat-exchanger to supplement a natural gas burner for winter and air-conditioner for summer. The purpose of burrying the coil underground 6+ feet is that due to the warm earth its at a constant tempreature year round and it can just help make up the difference. As well as using Solar water heaters on the roofs of houses to supplment water heaters. Possibly if those items become a part of mass usage the government can include tax credits on those also.
There appears to be a place for natural gas as a partial solution to our energy crisis. History suggests there is no one perfect choice for most situations. But let us not forget that we need to do all we can to mitigate our dependence on foreign oil. The transfer of wealth out of this country has to be in the long run as harmful to the standard of living in this country as green house gases in the short term. We need to do all we can and right now!
The US needs technologies that can implemented right now, natural appears to be ready for today. Tomorrow
we will have “more perfect solutions”. I want more US dollars staying home!