Honda To Offer Natural-Gas Civic With Fueling Machine In California

[hatrack]

DETROIT - "In what it describes as an industry first, Honda Motor Co. is offering a natural gas vehicle with its own home refueling machine at dealerships in California.

Honda said Thursday it has been offering its Honda Civic GX sedan to fleet operators for seven years, and estimates there are 7,000 of the natural gas-powered vehicles on the road. But this will be the first time consumers can buy the vehicle in a dealership and lease a refueling machine to go along with it.

EDIT

Honda said it expects to sell about 300 of the vehicles this year through 17 dealerships in northern and southern California. Toronto-based FuelMaker Corp., which makes the refueling machine, also will make the machine available to consumers in Arizona, Salt Lake City, Dallas and Milwaukee, although the Civic GX won't be on sale in those cities.

Honda said the Civic GX can go up to 220 miles without refueling and costs about 3.75 cents per mile to fuel. A conventional, gasoline-powered Civic can go approximately 350 miles without refueling and costs 8.8 cents per mile to fuel. The Civic GX has some of the lowest emissions of any vehicle on the road, Honda said. On average, a car with a natural gas-powered internal-combustion engine emits 87 percent less nitrogen oxide, 70 percent less carbon monoxide and 25 less carbon dioxide than a car with an engine that uses gasoline, according to Honda."

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7591809/

[marc_the_dem]

1. Long overdue.....

but very welcome..... Is big oil starting to tremble in its boots yet?

[thegreatwildebeest]

3. Trembling? Hardly...

Why should it start trembling? The big energy companies are going to be part and parcel of the "hydrogen" economy just as much as they are of the fossil fuel one. Something is going to be needed to fuel the conversion process that hydrogen requires. In fact now, most hydrogen is either produced using oil (30%) or natural gas (48%). The "hydrogen" economy is a canard.

I think they might start trembling if everyone stopped getting in cars period, and started riding bikes for most short distance driving, and using mass transit for long distance. Than when consumption of fuels of all sorts drop off, the big energy companies may get scared.

[rfkrfk]

2. lease, bad word, Honda's EVs were leased, then crushed

bless Honda, for planning to scrunch
their gas compressors