xcel
04-20-2007, 02:14 AM
SAE Congress - Updates. (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=25672#post25672)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2007_Honda_Civic_GX_-_NGV.jpgTim Moran - Automotive News - April 17, 2007
The 2007 Honda Civic GX does not appear to be catching on. Below may be some of the reasons.
DETROIT -- With all the talk of new powertrains and alternative fuels, one fuel that gets no respect is compressed natural gas, industry powertrain experts say.
"We built them, and nobody wanted them," said Bernard Robinson, retired director of r&d for DaimlerChrysler. His remarks came as part of a panel discussion here today at the 2007 SAE World Congress.
Energy legislation in 1992 gave automakers incentives to introduce natural gas as a clean fuel for internal combustion engines. But with few exceptions, buyers of compressed natural gas, or CNG, vehicles were utility companies and other institutions that used the vehicles as demonstrator fleets, public relations measures or for clean-fuel vehicle tax credits. Politicians from natural gas-producing states often touted the fuel.
But consumers, with limited ability to refuel CNG vehicles, panned them.
In the years since, natural gas prices have soared beyond levels predicted in the 1990s, when natural gas was viewed as a cheap and almost inexhaustible fuel.
Honda Motor Co. today sells about 1,000 CNG-fueled Civics a year in North America, primarily in California, along with home-fueling stations that compress and store piped-in natural gas. Honda managing officer of r&d Toru Ogawa said the company does not anticipate increased demand for CNG vehicles.
Gerhard Schmidt, Ford Motor Co.'s vice president of r&d, said predictions showing natural gas as a motor fuel are aimed at the gas as an energy source for conversion into electricity or hydrogen, and not as a direct fuel for vehicles.
"This is more an energy source that I am proposing rather than a new wave of CNG vehicles, Schmidt said. "We had for a long time CNG vehicles in production, with very limited success. I don't think there is an intention to make this experiment a second time."
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2007_Honda_Civic_GX_-_NGV.jpgTim Moran - Automotive News - April 17, 2007
The 2007 Honda Civic GX does not appear to be catching on. Below may be some of the reasons.
DETROIT -- With all the talk of new powertrains and alternative fuels, one fuel that gets no respect is compressed natural gas, industry powertrain experts say.
"We built them, and nobody wanted them," said Bernard Robinson, retired director of r&d for DaimlerChrysler. His remarks came as part of a panel discussion here today at the 2007 SAE World Congress.
Energy legislation in 1992 gave automakers incentives to introduce natural gas as a clean fuel for internal combustion engines. But with few exceptions, buyers of compressed natural gas, or CNG, vehicles were utility companies and other institutions that used the vehicles as demonstrator fleets, public relations measures or for clean-fuel vehicle tax credits. Politicians from natural gas-producing states often touted the fuel.
But consumers, with limited ability to refuel CNG vehicles, panned them.
In the years since, natural gas prices have soared beyond levels predicted in the 1990s, when natural gas was viewed as a cheap and almost inexhaustible fuel.
Honda Motor Co. today sells about 1,000 CNG-fueled Civics a year in North America, primarily in California, along with home-fueling stations that compress and store piped-in natural gas. Honda managing officer of r&d Toru Ogawa said the company does not anticipate increased demand for CNG vehicles.
Gerhard Schmidt, Ford Motor Co.'s vice president of r&d, said predictions showing natural gas as a motor fuel are aimed at the gas as an energy source for conversion into electricity or hydrogen, and not as a direct fuel for vehicles.
"This is more an energy source that I am proposing rather than a new wave of CNG vehicles, Schmidt said. "We had for a long time CNG vehicles in production, with very limited success. I don't think there is an intention to make this experiment a second time."