More natural gas vehicles in the future?

[RH77]

Originally Posted by metromizer

Perhaps the GSA auctions would be worth looking at.

Municipal auctions may help find a Civic GX -- I'm not sure if the Gov't bought any "foreign-brand" vehicles for the Fleet. Most have been Dodge Stratus, Chevy Malibus, Impalas and large vehicles (I've seen some K-Cars still in service at airports). Off the top, I can't think of any small, domestic, CNG vehicles...

RH77

[oil pan 4]

I'm going to say nope.
13 years later the natural gas car market is dead with no change in sight.

[freebeard]

Is this the zombie thread record holder?

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I'm going to say nope.
13 years later the natural gas car market is dead with no change in sight.

Do you think the hype over EV's has basically killed all other ideas? No CNG, no LPG, hardly anyone mentions bio fuels, hydraulic hybrids are dead, even electric hybrids and plug-in hybrids aren't near as popular as EV's, or so it seems.

[oil pan 4]

EVs and the very high price and low reliably of home CNG machines killed the cng car.

[Piotrsko]

Probably that and the fact it didn't fit in the trunk so you were fubar if you were low on fuel.

[dremd]

We have 3 CNG stations open to the public within 5 miles of my house. My assumption is that is due to the fact that we have CNG busses + garbage trucks + ups trucks.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

CNG is still widely used in my country, even though its prices are not so much favorable as they used to be in other times. Even though the conversion businesses are quite tightly regulated, mostly concerning safety standards, sometimes I still see converted cars with a clearly outdated hardware meant for older models, leading to a much higher performance loss and decreasing potential fuel savings. Regarding sequential port-injection engines to which most conversions are done nowadays, as CNG has a higher resistence to knock, it's not unusual to see some with an excessively lean AFR, leading to power losses and overheating nearly to the same extent that would happen with a throttle-body CNG fumigation.

Most of my driving experiences with vehicles converted to CNG was on Pontiac Trans Sport minivans, one with the 3.8L MPFI and other with the 3.1L TBI engines, and a local derivative of the Opel Corsa B with the TBI version of the 1.6L engine formerly available in the United States as the Vortec 1600 industrial engine, all fitted with a fumigation CNG system.

[GJKH]

I'd buy a used one, but hard to find fueling stations where I live. I'm guessing this is one of the issues holding back NG vehicles.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by GJKH

hard to find fueling stations where I live

Considering how relatively common it is there in the United States to have NG distributed by pipelines directly to end users, in contrast to my country (Brazil) where bottled LPG is still more prevalent for home appliances and even some industrial purposes, it does surprise me CNG didn't become so popular there as it became in some parts of my country (yet in some cities, despite CNG being available, it's not unusual to see taxi drivers now avoiding CNG which surprised me).