Natural Gas Automobiles

I write frequently on this site about the need for the USA to switch towards the use of natural gas to power its vehicles. Today, I want to point out that this is no pipedream; the technology to do this exists in the marketplace already.

Right now, Honda is selling a natural gas powered Civic, the GX model. The car gets mileage of 24 city and 36 highway according to the EPA. These are for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. Of couse, the difference is that for each gallon of gasoline used in a conventional Civic, the consumer is paying about $3.50 while the natural gas fuel cost for the equivalent amount is 75 cents. There are also buses that use natural gas on the streets of quite a number of cities.

Natural gas does have drawbacks. Right now, a car like the Honda has a smaller fuel tank than a gasoline powered car. That makes the driving range of the nat gas car about 250 miles, while the gasoline powered car has a range of about 350 depending on the model. In addition, the natural gas car is more expensive, although this is a problem which would likely go away if production of these vehicles were to ramp up to a major amount. The best way to think of it is this, even at the current elevated price (MSRP of about $26,000), the fuel savings over the life of the vehicle more than pay for the higher price. Assuming that you drive 100,000 miles while owning the car, the difference in fuel costs at the current market price is about $10,000.

Now compare these cars to the much touted Chevy Volt. The Volt cost over $40,000 and that is after a major governmental subsidy. It has a driving range on each charge of 40 miles. In other words it is a great vehicle for very rich folks who only take very short trips around town. nevertheless, the federal government has spent billions pushing this car into production.

If the federal government would make a move like having the government vehicle fleet change over to natural gas where feasibile, there would be a market of hundreds of thousand of vehicles created overnight. The automakers would ramp up to develop new cars and trucks that would meet the federal requirements. Let's say that the government said that it wanted to buy a vehicle that could carry five, have mileage of at least 25 miles to the gallon equivalent, have a driving range of 300 miles and have the ability to drive at sustained periods of time at highway speeds of 75 MPH. There is no doubt that such cars could be developed quickly by each of the US manufacturers. Of course, that would also mean that the carmakers would put these vehicles on sale with the rest of their offerings.

At some point, we would see nat gas cars selling alongside gasoline powered cars for roughly the same price. Is there any doubt that huge numbers would get sold?

So remember this: 1,000,000 cars which average 25 mpg and which drive 15,000 miles each year use a total of roughly 20 million barrels of oil in order to come up with their fuel needs. At the current price of $104 per barrel, that is roughly 2.1 billion dollars of oil per year, every year. That means that if the USA could change just 10% of its car and truck market to nat gas vehicles, we would save close to 2.5 billion dollars in the first year, 5 billion in the second year, 7.5 billion in the third year and so on. Indeed, a more realistic view of this process would see about half of the market switch to nat gas once the cost differential was eliminated. In very little time we would be seeing savings of 50 billion dollars a year, a figure that would keep on getting higher. Every single one of those dollars would stay in the US to create American jobs rather than getting shipped to Venezuela or Iran or some other country that is unfriendly to the USA. Further, since the natural gas car is 40% cleaner than a gasoline powered car, putting 20 million nat gas cars on the road would be amajor step towards reducing air pollution.

So let's summarize: nat gas cars are feasible and already in production; the government could jump start the use of these vehicles at little or no cost to the taxpayer; the vehicles would dramatically reduce the American balance of payments deficit; the use of these vehicles would provide a major stimulus to domestic job growth; the use of these vehicles would provide a major increase to the revenues of state and federal governments through taxes on the nat gas produced and income taxes on the additional job holders; the use of nat gas cars would cut the amount of money going to states that sponsor terrorists; the use of the nat gas cars would also actually lower the cost of oil for the entire world by reducing demand; and the use of these cars would make a major contribution towards cleaning up the environment. No wonder the Obama administration has done nothing to promote these vehicles. to paraphrase Will Rogers, president Obama has never met a good idea that he liked.