Potential customers could also be lured by substantial cost savings as oil prices climb amid tensions in the Middle East and natural gas prices fall in the wake of major new discoveries in the United States***
The greenest car you've likely never heard of will soon be hitting Honda showrooms across the United States as the Japanese automaker expands sales of its compressed natural gas powered Civic.
Honda has been quietly winning green car awards for more than a decade as it cautiously introduced the Civic GX first to government and business fleet owners and then retail customers in a handful of test markets.
The nationwide retail launch set for this fall comes as US President Barack Obama pushes for wider adoption of fuel-efficient vehicles --including mandating that all federal cars will need to run on alternative, hybrid or electric power by 2015.
Potential customers could also be lured by substantial cost savings as oil prices climb amid tensions in the Middle East and natural gas prices fall in the wake of major new discoveries in the United States.
But the Civic GX enters a crowded field where new plug-in hybrid and fully electric cars — the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf — are grabbing headlines and zippy new compact cars offer competitive fuel economy.
Honda's goals are relatively modest — doubling sales to around 4,000 vehicles in the first year of national sales while Nissan is hoping to hit annual US sales of20,000 Leafs — but it still thinks the GXcan compete.
"We're asking the GXpurchaser to make far fewer sacrifices than any other alternative fuel vehicle," Eric Rosenberg, who heads Honda's alternative fuel vehicle program in the United States.
"When you compare it to the Volt or Leaf, it's the most affordable, it has the best range and it
has the quickest refill."
The GX can drive up to 250 miles (403 kilometers) on a single tank and only takes a few minutes to fill at public or home fueling station.
The Leaf has a range of 62 to 138 miles (100 to 222 kilometers) depending on road conditions and takes 30 minutes to partially charge at a quick-charge station and seven to 20 hours using
a standard 220 or 110 volt outlet.
GM's Volt can drive 25 to 50 miles (40 to 80 kilometers) on its battery before switching over to a gasoline-powered engine and takes four to ten hours to charge.
Honda's GX is also the cleanest car on the US market, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy which looks at a vehi-
cle's total environmental impact.
That's because natural gas is a clean-burning fuel. It consists primarily of methane and emits about 30 percent less carbon dioxide and 70-90 percent less smog-forming particulates than gasoline.
Electric cars may emit nothing from the tailpipe, but they have a significant carbon footprint because 45 percent of US electricity is generated by coal. Their batteries also carry a heavy environmental toll.
Realtor and property manager Irma Vargas bought her first Civic GX in 2006 to save on fuel costs and get access to carpool lanes — a perk that can cut a 90-minute commute in half in congested Los Angeles.
"Me and my business partner bought it and were going to take turns with it because it was a new idea," Vargas said in a telephone interview.
"We found that we were fighting over it, so he ended up getting the next year's model."
Vargas sold the GXto an employee so she could upgrade to a new model in 2008 and has convinced four of her friends and customers to buy one as well.
She figures she's saved thousands of dollars on fuel costs — she can fill her GX at home for about a dollar a gallon while it costs nearly four dollars a gallon to fill her Lexus hybrid, which she saves for long trips and big shopping excursions.
But it will be years before the GX or electric cars are sold in sufficient numbers to make a significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions, cautioned Lonnie Miller, an analyst at auto research firm R.L. Polk.
"If you look at the traditional batch of gaselectric hybrids, it's 2.6 percent of all US new vehicle registrations," he told AFP.