All you clean air enviro types - time to sell!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bluntguy @ Jun 6 2006, 04:59 PM) [snapback]266902[/snapback]</div>

Actually, no.

Some states require you to pay taxes for the natural-gas you use to power your vehicle, since you are still using the roads in which that money (normally from gasoline) is suppose to fund. That extra expense is pretty much never accounted for in number crunching, giving you the impression the fuel cost far less than it actually does in the end.

And this type of vehicle doesn't reduce consumption at all. So I fail to see the point if all it does is reduce emissions only. It is an incomplete solution.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you argue that you specifically hate hybrids because they are allowed access to the HOV lanes with a single occupant...

That would make this car an unmitigated disaster. The CNG GX qualifies for a gray-toned Clean Air sticker and as far as I know there is no cap on the number of those being issued. Sales of this car will lead to dramatically more HOV "cheaters," as you characterized them.

That being said, I think that all effective low emissions technology is terrific, and while I'm not going to trade in my Prius... I might get one for my wife when her 1994 Carolla finally dies.

 

Sell???? No way. I'd love to take this new honda on a road trip and then have no idea where to fill up. Yeah it might be convenient to fill up at home, but how many times do you need to fill up at home. Im usually out and about when I have to go to the dreaded gas station. Good idea....not practical.

 

The Civic GX is a wonderful clean-air car and certainly a viable alternative to a hybrid. But natural gas vehicles have their own quirks that limits their mass appeal. First and foremeost is that you can kiss your trunk space good bye. Pretty much the entire trunk space is devoted to the tank that holds the natural gas. A second problem will be refilling the tank. While the PHILL unit goes a long ways towards making it easier to fuel up at home, it can take upwards of 8 to 12 hours to completely refill the tank due to it's low pressure nature. The only way to refill the tank more quickly is to got to a high-pressure commercial filling station, of which there are not a lot of. This can limit using the car for trips out of town. There is also the associated cost of the PHILL unit, installation of it, how much electricity it will pull when refueling your car, and the pice of natural gas which has seen it's own spike in prices recently.

That said, a natural-gas powered car is an ideal commute vehicle, especially if you can afford the up front cost of the PHILL unit (hint, it will cost a lot more to purchase and install it than the $1000 credit they give you), and natural gas is readily and cheaply available. My wife and I contemplated buying a Civic GX a couple of years, but the PHILL unit wasn't available at the time we were looking, and the Civic GX hadn't been released yet.

The natural-gas powered car forums on edmunds.com has all sorts of useful info if you are interested in getting a natural-gas powered car.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Erik @ Jun 6 2006, 03:58 PM) [snapback]266922[/snapback]</div>

I think the idea is to be able to refill every night at home, essentially topping off the tank every night. As a daily commuter, this would work rather well. For long distance driving, specifically out of town, the appeal of the car is less...

 

It sounds a lot like an EV to me because you have to fill it at home for several hours, though more expensive.
*gets a soap box ready for Darrell*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bluntguy @ Jun 6 2006, 05:59 PM) [snapback]266902[/snapback]</div>

Blunt sounds like a car salesman, :lol: :lol:

But natural gas vehicles have their own quirks that limits their mass appeal. First and foremeost is that you can kiss your trunk space good bye. Pretty much the entire trunk space is devoted to the tank that holds the natural gas.

The same can be said of Hydrogen vehicles, No Trunk Space & limited number of fueling stations :huh: ....

Same can be said of the EV's too, Limited charging stations, the dreaded plug.. (threw that one in for darell)

i'll barrow the soap box next, for darell.. :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

zzz

 

As limited as the EV is compare to the Civic GX, I still prefer an EV.

Natural Gas in California is starting to get expensive. I have seen prices go up almost every couple of months from PG&E.

With an EV, at least I could invest in solar panels and not worry about cost of powering my EV ever again. If only there are EVs for sale, I would have jump all over Governator's rebate program on solar panels.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dipper @ Jun 6 2006, 05:45 PM) [snapback]266983[/snapback]</div>

See? I really don't need to say anything.

Here's the deal guys: I actually can get an astonishing deal on a new CivicGX. Would make you cry. (oooh! I should mention here that NO, I cannot get the deals for others -sorry!) But I'm not buying one. The main reason? Inconvenience as compared to my EV. There are WAY more places for me to charge the EV than there are filling stations for the CNG vehicles. Don't get me wrong - I really like CNG vehicles (and use them as proof as to why FCV's are a loosing propostion). It just comes down to our EV being more efficient, more reliable, and MORE convenient to fuel. On the weekends, we regularly drive a 170 mile round trip where I charge at our destination and come home. With a CNG car, I'd have to drive many miles out of my way to fuel (unless I started full, but even the I had to fill it up somewhere less convenient than my garage... unless I had Phill...

There is NOTHING more convenient than fueling at home. And while the CNG cars can do that with Phill, there are some serious draw-backs to doing so. You aren't just paying for the relatively cheap NG, folks! YOu have to pay for the fuel AND for the electric compressor to shove it into your tanks all night long. And the compressor is pretty loud! When you total it all up, the fuel-at-home CNG situation becomes less enticing. Much cheaper and easier to fuel an EV!

And then there's the trunk issue. This was likely my biggest problem (I was seriously looking into the GX when we were also shopping for the Prius.) Our long range car is our SUV (currently the Prius). It needs to carry lots of people and much cargo. The GX falls far short here! Only about 1/3 of the trunk is left. I seriously can't deal with that. Would be just dreamy for a long commuter car. But not for the family-outing car for which we use our secondar vehicle.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(devprius @ Jun 6 2006, 04:09 PM) [snapback]266928[/snapback]</div>

Only if your commute is longer than 100 miles or so!


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Jun 6 2006, 03:25 PM) [snapback]266912[/snapback]</div>

Er... you mean like the Prius is an incomplete solution? The CNG cars are the cleanest ICE vehicles on the road. That counts for something.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Erik @ Jun 6 2006, 03:58 PM) [snapback]266922[/snapback]</div>

This is totally due to the liquid fuel mentality. There are few things more enjoyable about an EV than being ABLE To fuel at home. NOT stading on greasy asphalt in the elements at the side of the freeway, delaying your arrival at your distination. Fueling at home should be cheered! Imagine if you could fill with gasoline at home and on the road. How often, in your daily life, would you CHOOSE to go to the gas station? Every night you could fill up and have a full tank in the morning.

If your cell phone required you to drive to a "cell phone filling station" every time the battery got low, how happy would you be with it? You plug it in at home, where it is convenient.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(benighted @ Jun 6 2006, 04:38 PM) [snapback]266949[/snapback]</div>

There you go! Thanks for leaving some room on this little box!

 

Might want to check out this Edmunds article first before trading one's Prius in on a Civic GX:

Running On Fumes

One of the biggest problems is the current dearth of natural gas refueling stations in most parts of the country. Wouldn't be a problem if you don't plan exceeding the range from your home 'PHILL' unit. IIRC, you can locate them by using some EPA website and when I looked for stations near me, it seems like the closest one was over 400 miles away in Detroit. That's a little too far for me to travel to tank up (plus I don't exactly consider Detroit a vacation locale).

Could make some headway in California but as to the rest of the country, doesn't quite sound ready for prime-time.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rudiger @ Jun 6 2006, 07:02 PM) [snapback]267006[/snapback]</div>

I'll give you another little caveat. Even here in CA where we do have many stations, there is no single payment method. Each has their own proprietary way to pay for the fuel, and you have to get all the right cards, and know how/when to use them. You don't just drive up and use your credit card or cash in all places like with gasoline. It is, quite honestly, a PITA in that regard.

But what this points out is if we have this much trouble with CNG infrastructure, how will we ever manage with H2? A gas that is far more expensive, harder to transport and store? IF the car makers want to make a go of H2, prove it to us with CNG!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jun 6 2006, 10:13 PM) [snapback]267008[/snapback]</div>

Here's the Car and Driver article on Honda's attempt at a hydrogen-powered car:

Honda FCX

Although not really practical at this early stage, you truly have to appreciate Honda's efforts at producing several different alternative-fuel vehicles (unlike the domestic manufacturers).

Even though Honda's hybrid efforts aren't that bad, they're still not quite up to the technological sophistication of Toyota's hybrid system. Because of Honda's obviously extensve efforts in the hydrogen and natural gas fields, if Honda had decided to devote all of their alternative-fuel vehicle R&D soley on building a hybrid (as Toyota did), one can only wonder how differently things might have turned out in the hybrid arena.

 

One of my previous vehicles was a Ford Ranger that I ran on NGV (natural gas for vehicles). I retained the gasoline tank, but didn't use it much.

Fuel cost was much lower here in British Columbia. I never had any problems locating filing stations.

We have mandatory vehicle emission testing in BC. The equipment could sometimes not get an emission reading because the emissions were so low.

The retrofit was a bit pricey.

All in all, it worked well.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rudiger @ Jun 6 2006, 07:41 PM) [snapback]267022[/snapback]</div>

Surprisingly good article that doesn't devolve into the "prevalent Hydrogen as an energy source" falsehood that is so commonly spewed these days.

I see all that work to make an EV run on Hydrogen. And as always... I have to ask myself WHY? If all that effort and money were put into a battery EV (or hell, even a CNG car) it could/would be spectacular. The CNG cars today don't have much thought put into them as far as tank placement, etc. A row of smaller tanks COULD be put under the car where the gas tank used to be. But we don't do that, because it would be expensive, and nobody would buy the car. So we make them affordable. Unlike FCVs.