Technobabble

Will You Drive a Car That Runs on CNG?

Posted by on May 18, 2010 | 6 Comments

America has enough natural gas to last for hundreds of years. It’s plentiful, relatively inexpensive, and burns far more cleanly than coal and petroleum. Until now, compressed natural gas (CNG) has not been popular as a transportation fuel, other than for specific applications such as urban buses and garbage trucks. With all the hubbub about electric cars, most folks have never heard about CNG-powered vehicles.

That’s about to change. There’s a new push to replace conventionally fueled vehicles with CNG-power.

While the Honda Civic GX NGV is the only factory-built CNG-powered passenger car available in America today, CNG-conversions are becoming more and more popular. Government-funded conversion rebates lower the overall cost dramatically, allowing for rapid return on investment.

This year’s Alternative Fuels and Vehicles conference was a hotbed of CNG activity, with a host of CNG converted vehicles including taxicabs and pickup trucks. There was even a wicked cool 33 hot rod running on CNG and a CNG-converted Hummer rescue vehicle.

Is there a CNG-powered car in your future?

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/theoracle/ the oracle

    Probably not, as CNG powered vehicles will be interim fixes, quickly supplanted by electric vehicles. Large trucks and haulers may use it for some time.

    It’s cleaner in terms of some pollutants, but the carbon dioxide is still a product of combustion.

    • http://www.geekbooks.com/ Dan Gray

      How quickly is quickly? All of the estimates I’ve seen for electric vehicle adoption show a slow ramp up and meager marketshare for quite some time.

      We also have to consider the fuel used to generate that electric power. A whopping amount is produced via coal-burning power plants.

      That said, I want to fuel my (proverbial) electric car with my own solar panels and wind turbine … :)

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  • YOGESH PAWAR

    Back here in India, the auto-rickshaws already run on CNG gas.

  • Alex

    Los Angeles has been using CNG in their busses for some years now. The problem they have found is that the mileage is less than with fuel oil.

  • Rabinder

    Here in Pakistan, many vehicles run on CNG and can save you almost 40-50% money. Although with CNG vehicles’ performance is not at par with normal fuel and the max speed at which you can go is also reduced substantially.