Honda’s Civic GX: A Vehicle Powered by Natural Gas

December 9th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under • by admin

As Gasoline prices continue to remain at near record prices in the United States consumers are more and more looking for ways to curb their addiction to oil and find ways to transport themselves without using as much or any gasoline at all. Some are purchasing more fuel efficient and hybrid vehicles to cut back on gasoline, but there’s now a vehicle that doesn’t require you to use any gasoline at all. Honda is producing a version of the Civic that runs completely on natural gas.

You can pickup the Honda Civic GX for about $25,000, which is about $7,500 more than the standard Civic costs, but it might be worth it. The $7,500 price difference drops down to $3,500 when you factor in the $4,000 federal tax credit that you will receive for purchasing this natural-gas powered vehicle. The real savings come in when you consider the cost of operating the vehicle on a per mile basis. You end up spending the equivalent of about $1.20 to go the same distance as 1 gallon of gasoline would.

Instead of taking your vehicle to a traditional gas-station to fill up, you would have to take your vehicle to a specially fitted station that’s equipped to fill natural gas vehicles. There are many of these stations located in California and in New England, but you might have trouble finding a station to fill up at in other parts of the country. You’ll want to do some research and figure out if there’s a station that you can reasonably fill up at before your home before you make the leap and purchase a natural gas powered vehicle.

Even if there’s no station for you to fill up your vehicle with, there’s the potential that you can still make use of a natural-gas powered vehicle. There’s a device called a “Phill” that will hook into your existing natural gas line and allow you to fill up your natural gas powered vehicle at home. You can get more information about that product at www.myphill.com.

This vehicle is a good option if you need a vehicle for driving to work and around your locality, but you likely wouldn’t want to take it on trips. If you’re in an unfamiliar area, it would be very difficult to plan out stops to fuel up your vehicle. You definitely won’t want it as the only vehicle in your family, but it’s something to consider