Taking the natural gas-powered Honda Civic for a spin

On the high-tech end of the alternative fuels scale, Honda‘s pushing its hydrogen-powered FCX concept from concept to production line as soon as possible, 2008 even. But a couple of notches below that, Honda’s also pushing another alternative fuel for cars: natural gas. With the Civic GX. And it’s a lot closer to home than hydrogen power – both tech-wise and fuel-wise.

Advantages of using compressed natural gas (CNG) as the fuel of choice, at least for the short-term: the fuel costs as little as one-third of gasoline prices. It’s domestically produced. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy calls it THE cleanest-burning fossil fuel on earth.

The only changes you need to make to a regular Civic are the CNG tank and fuel lines, and a specialized fuel injector. The estimated mileage you can pull out of CNG is about 29/39 mpg. And contrary to fears, CNG is less volatile than gasoline.

What’s the bad news? How many public natural gas stations do you know of? Exactly. The GX’s fuel tank holds only about, in gasoline terms, 8 gallons of CNG. Without a robust infrastructure of CNG pumps across the country, don’t expect the GX to last you on a cross-country trip from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere. Not unless you like pushing cars.

But wait! You can now gas up your natural gas guzzler right at home! Details of that at the full article.

On the high-tech end of the alternative fuels scale, Honda‘s pushing its hydrogen-powered FCX concept from concept to production line as soon as possible, 2008 even. But a couple of notches below that, Honda’s also pushing another alternative fuel for cars: natural gas. With the Civic GX. And it’s a lot closer to home than hydrogen power – both tech-wise and fuel-wise.

Advantages of using compressed natural gas (CNG) as the fuel of choice, at least for the short-term: the fuel costs as little as one-third of gasoline prices. It’s domestically produced. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy calls it THE cleanest-burning fossil fuel on earth.

The only changes you need to make to a regular Civic are the CNG tank and fuel lines, and a specialized fuel injector. The estimated mileage you can pull out of CNG is about 29/39 mpg. And contrary to fears, CNG is less volatile than gasoline.

What’s the bad news? How many public natural gas stations do you know of? Exactly. The GX’s fuel tank holds only about, in gasoline terms, 8 gallons of CNG. Without a robust infrastructure of CNG pumps across the country, don’t expect the GX to last you on a cross-country trip from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere. Not unless you like pushing cars.

Thanks to a home CNG fuelling system from Toronto-based FuelMaker, though, the Civic GX is perfect for the urban commute, where you burn the most gas anyway (pictures below). The Phill system costs about $ 4,000 (without eco-friendly government tax breaks), and can be a bit troublesome to install. Since it doesn’t have a compressor, it will take up to 16 hours to fill up the tank, though.

Using Phill, your fuel (natural gas) costs run up to an estimated $ 1.30 per gallon. The GX itself costs about $ 24,000 cash-on-barrel, but the same eco-friendly tax breaks should bring the price down, even to that of an entry-level Civic (around $ 16,000).

Honda and FuelMaker had delivered a GX and a Phill to Popular Science editors a couple of months ago. Over the next year, they will take the car through its paces, both on the daily commute and on that rare Sunday drive, just to get out of town once in a while. They will evaluate the car’s efficiency, eco-friendliness, and most important, its practicality. And we will be watching and waiting for the results. You see, this writer just totaled his gasoline bills for the month and nearly had a heart attack at his young age…