Ever wish you could fill up at home and skip the service station altogether? How about eliminating your addiction to petroleum with the cleanest internal combustion engine sold today? The Honda Civic NGV aims to fill all those dreams.
The natural gas powered Civic GX NGV is refilled via a Phill home fueling unit, which is tied to your home’s gas line. While initially targeted at controlled fleets and campus settings, the Civic NGV is available to individuals in select areas. Alas, it’s not for everyone. Finding an authorized Honda NGV dealer in your area may pose a significant hurdle.
It’s important to note that the Civic NGV is not a conversion, nor is it imported from overseas. In this video report shot at the 2008 Alternative Fuels and Vehicles conference, Honda representative Annabel Cook explains that the Civic NGV it is built from the ground up as a natural-gas powered vehicle at Honda’s production facility in Ohio.
– by Daniel Gray
The Honda civic is a first the the US. Mercedes is considering marketing one of their European NGVs in the US, which would be a great alternative. There are also some small start ups in the US working on concept cars.
At the moment, the best choice is buying a new converted Ford Crown Vic from BAF Technologies.
Ok, but what’s the range of one of these puppies? What about refueling other than at home? So far this reads as ‘cute but not practical’…much like current battery powered vehicles when used for anything other than the daily commute…but worse since I CAN recharge an EV at my destination under many circumstances.
@Bryan314 The 2011 Honda Civic GX NGV has a 7.8 gasoline gallon equivalent tank and is rated at 24 city / 36 highway / 28 combined. Check cngprices.com for local availability and cost of fuel … CNG is remarkably inexpensive in some parts of the country. It’s well under a dollar per gallon right now in Oklahoma.
@mpg-o-editor: Ok, so we are looking at purely a commuter car….with less than 300 mile range and no way to refuel other than at home, that makes it nice for fleet cars that stay in the city (taxis maybe with a different type of refilling station?) but not a good car for a normal person who travels at all…a Tesla has better range and can be recharged (slowly) anywhere…so this is one of those “ooh, neat novelty, I guess it’s good for some things” kinda toys.
@Bryan314 There are public CNG refueling stations. Take a look at CNGprices.com … Availability and pricing of CNG depends on the location, and the refuels happen in a wink of an eye, compared to recharging an electric. The Tesla Roadster is wicked cool, but it’s roughly four times the price of the Civic GX and only has room for two. (We’ll leave the Model S off the table until it ships … )
But hey, it’s all good!
Electric vehicles are great for some folks. CNG vehicles are great for others. And then there’s FlexFuel and Diesel …