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July 10, 2006
Civic Natural Gas Vehicle
The Honda Civic NGV has always flirted with my eco-sensibilities. Back in 2004, when I was shopping for a new car, my only choices were between the new Toyota Prius and Honda Civic NGV. I ended up choosing the Prius for its ample room, tech goodies, and more importantly it used readily available petrol instead of natural gas.
Fast forward to 2006 and the new Civic NGV gets better mileage (32 mpg), more power, and has all the amenities of its awarding winning Civic cousins. Honda also makes it easier to refuel by including PHIL, it's home refueling station that uses your home's current gas line. The system itself is self contained and safe. Just plug in your Civic overnight and come morning, you're good to go 200 miles before needing to refuel.
The advantages of natural gas are its clean emissions (next to zero), home convenience, and its cost compared to petrol. It's the perfect car for someone like me who just needs to get to and from. Anything I can do to try and reduce my tailpipe emissions in L.A. is reason enough to jump on the NGV bandwagon.
Unfortunately natural gas is a depletable energy resource. There's only about 100 years left of it at the current rate of consumption so vehicles like this one will stay in its niche market. Just look at the bigger picture though. You're doing your small part in reducing the world's green house gases while encouraging auto companies to continue R&D in clean energy alternatives. We need it for our future's sake so invest in technologies like this now so we can have a better cleaner tomorrow.
Posted by tranism at 1:11 AM | Permalink
Comments
I guess another way to look at it would be that your car will probably not outlast 100 years.
Posted by: Tony at July 11, 2006 7:15 PM