Would natural gas hybrid cars cost too much?
Natural gas cars too expensive without hybrid technology?
Or is it just a matter of scale?
I watch a lot of financial news, but my viewing habits have little to do with investing, although I am interested in the concept of green investing — for that day I actually have some extra cash. It’s just that typically financial news is less focused on pop culture and politics. The info is just more useful.
Anyway, as gasoline prices have pushed higher in recent weeks, there has been more and more talk regarding natural gas in the financial news.
That has me again wondering about the costs of natural gas hybrids.
Until the Iran issue is resolved, the only place for gasoline prices to go is higher according to the consensus, and few expect an easy resolution. In fact, $5.00 gasoline is becoming a regular conversation. This might be as low as gasoline prices go for some time — maybe ever.
Many in the financial community believe this will bring more attention to natural gas. For instance, yesterday I heard that at today’s prices a natural gas fill up would cost $1.62 per gallon gasoline equivalent.
At first that number sounds great, but then there’s the extra price of natural gas vehicles. Honda’s natural gas Civic, for instance, is considerably more expensive than the Civic hybrid. Mating these two technologies would certainly create sticker shock at today’s prices, even if natural gas only cost $1.00 per gallon equivalent.
Yet, are the extra costs of natural gas vehicles mostly just about scale?
In the past of I’ve met some journalists and auto executives from Argentina, one of the leaders in the natural gas car movement, and they believe one hundred percent that natural gas can compete with gasoline or diesel. In fact, some have suggested that with scale, they’d out-compete gasoline cars.
Of course, natural gas as a fuel isn’t going to last forever.
But, say that natural gas vehicles had to be hybrid vehicles, except for large trucks, so that the only premium — assisted, unfortunately, with tax incentives — would be the hybrid premium. Thus, not only would their be the long term hybrid advantage, but also cheaper fuel, to lure consumers to the advantages of hybrids.
Giving people more incentives to buy hybrids — including plug-in and range extended ones — that use natural gas could be an interesting win/win. It replaces foreign oil with natural gas and it keeps battery development moving forward.
Once again, it seems to me that believing the battery should be today’s only focus simply isn’t supported by logic. In the interim, fossil fuels make more sense. However, a pure focus on fossil fuels is even more dangerous than focusing solely on batteries. It simply has to be recognized that fossil fuels are dead, and a smart, efficient transition from them needs to be begin ASAP. But we’re talking a multi-decade effort – a major US energy policy that probably has to transcend politics. LOL.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Nevertheless, if natural gas hybrids could ultimately be sold at the same price as today’s hybrids, that could be a pretty significant bridge to the future.
I’m no expert, but what about a CNG/gas hybride? Like a 10 GGE CNG tank plus a 4-6 gal gasoline tank. This gets most of the cost/CO2/emissions savings from CNG, while alleviating the infrastructure problem. The 4-6 gallon spare tank can get you to the next fuel station!!
Thank you for this article. I am anxiously waiting for CNG/electric hybrid cars.It especially makes sense in cars that have an all-electric mode for 40 or 50 miles. Natural gas would not go bad in the storage tank, and when needed you could go 300 miles or so. Gasoline (especially with ethanol) will go bad after several months of non use and cause costly repairs to your engine. Natural gas or even propane is optimal in this type of automobile.
if we have as much natural gas as some think we do.. it seems like a no-brainer to start converting some kinds of vehicles..certainly fleet vehicles and trucks and passenger/cargo vehicles.
but I wonder how we’d do if we took the natural gas and extract propane from it first because propane is about twice as energy dense and 2/3 or 3/4 of gasoline.
Seems to me that some kind of “additive” could be put in the nat gas to take care of the “dry” problem.
but what I do not understand is why Nat Gas engines cost so much more than conventional engines because it appears the only thing that really changes is the carburetor/etc.
anyone know what it costs so much more?
Well natural gas hybrids are exactly what we need now. This will reduce our oil dependency, and lower emissions. Another interesting fact is that regular gasoline engines can be converted to natural gas engines very easy. The only problem is that natural gas burns dry it might damage the engines in the long run. But in some European countries where gasoline prices are way over $7 per gallon, people have converted their cars to natural gas.
This show that automakers can produce a car that can burn any fuel including hydrogen, but countries will not adopt these new fuels, because they have a lot of money invested on oil.
[...] Would natural gas hybrid cars cost too much? var addthis_product = 'wpp-262'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":false,"data_track_addressbar":false};if (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}Or is it just a matter of scale? I watch a lot of financial news, but my viewing habits have little to do with investing, although I am interested in the concept of green investing for that day I actually have some extra cash. Its just that typically financial news is less focused on pop … Read more: http://www.hybridcarblog.com/ [...]
[...] Would natural gas hybrid cars cost too much? var addthis_product = 'wpp-262'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":false,"data_track_addressbar":false};if (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}Or is it just a matter of scale? I watch a lot of financial news, but my viewing habits have little to do with investing, although I am interested in the concept of green investing for that day I actually have some extra cash. Its just that typically financial news is less focused on pop … Read more: http://www.hybridcarblog.com/ [...]
CNG Hybrids makes more sense than regular hybrids because it eliminates oil from the formula.
When enough fleet vehicles have been moved to CNG the filling station availability will be good enough for consumers.
Made from scratch they wouldn’t be that much more than gas hybrids. That’s as opposed to converting an existing gasoline engine and tank to CNG.
good article. thanks for sharing. how much to fill it up?
also.. why the 6K premium? Is it a totally different engine or just a different fuel system for an existing engine?
Here in Western PA, most homes have natural gas, but CNG vehicles still don’t sell. Here’s an article from just this past week describing a test drive and how even in a Civic, its a $6000 premium: http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/blog/energy/2012/02/cng-honda-civic-test-drive.html
re: the “infrastructure thing”.
how about people who have nat gas in their homes?
They’d cost more and have less space due to the larger fuel tanks required. They might gain a foothold where Marcellus and Utica shale are being tapped here in the mid-Atlantic states, but even here I think gasoline would have to get much higher before people would pay the premium for a LNG car. Then there’s the infrastructure for filling up…