If you are in the fight against foreign oil, GM has recently announced that they will be offering a CNG option for their Silverado HD and GMC Sierra 2500 HD trucks. This is a big announcement as this is the first time GM will be building CNG option vehicles since they stopped in 2004. These trucks that have the CNG fuel option will actually be considered bi-fuel vehicle as they will be able to run on gasoline when CNG is not available. The CNG add-on for these two truck models will be priced $11,000 more than the standard gasoline trucks. While this may sound like a huge expense, let’s go over why this can more than pay for itself in a few short years and give your new truck a life not seen by any other fuel type.
2007-2008 GMC Sierra photographed in College Park, Maryland, USA. Category:GMT902 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
First of all, let’s look at how much a standard Silverado HD goes for, about $40,000 dollars. These trucks are usually 6.0 liter V8 powered monsters that come in long and short bed options. The average price per gallon of CNG is about $1.89 nationwide. This means that in three years you can save up to $10,000 in fuel by using CNG. This means that you CNG option will pay for itself in a little over 3 years. What most people don’t know is that CNG is much cleaner burning that it’s competitor gasoline. Better and cleaner burning fuel means that most CNG cars see engine life of 500,000 to a million miles before they give out. This is significantly longer that that of pure gasoline engines. With this type of perspective, it’s easy to see that the CNG option will pay for itself several times over as you will be able to get much more life out of your new GMC Sierra or Chevy Silverado with the CNG option.
GM will start taking orders for these CNG trucks starting April 19, 2012 and will start delivering them by the end of 2012.
On April 11th, 2012, Hertz Corporation announced that they will be introducing a fleet of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) cars to be available to rent here in the USA. As early as next month, people in the Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma will be able to rent Honda Civic CNG vehicles as well as GMC Yukons. These vehicles will also be equipped with GPS units in order to assist those that rent these vehicles in finding CNG fill stations.
Mark P. Frissora, Hertz Chairman said “Hertz is committed to providing our customers with a full spectrum of vehicle options to suit their rental needs including clean emission vehicles such as CNG, electric vehicles, as well as other fuel-efficient vehicles included in our Green Traveler Collection. As more low emission, fuel efficient vehicles become available for general use we will continue to expand our rental fleet, reflecting our dedication to offering sustainable travel options.”
Logo of . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
While CNG is a cleaner burning fuel and emits up to 30% less carbon dioxide and up to 75% less carbon monoxide, it is refreshing to see the first rental corporation in America take a bold step in offering these alternative fuel vehicles to the public. The more rental companies that jump on board, the sooner mainstream Americans will wake up to the fact that CNG cars are nothing new, but have in fact been around since the early 70′s. With the fuel being much less than half of the cost of regualr gasoline, the hope is that more people will push for Natural Gas infrastructure and help our country to wean off of foreign oil.
Hertz’s actions are not only commendable, but they are also taking a stance of leadership in an industry so dominated by gas guzzling cars and trucks. For now, Hertz is the only rental fleet offering these vehicles in limited numbers and locations, but hopefully soon we will see a large spike of CNG rental car availability throughout the continental US.
For anyone that has been in the market for CNG cars, you know that the last model year of domestic CNG cars was 2004, except of course for Honda’s NGV model. The main reason why 2004 is the last year that manufacturers made CNG cars is because Flex Fuel vehicles replaced them to meet the alternative fuel mandate from the government. Flex fuel has not taken off, and is just as expensive as gasoline as it is a mixture. With the gas prices rising almost 10% a week, the cries of the public have seemed to soften the ears of the big auto manufacturers here in the United States.
At the Marcellus Midstream Conference, several executives sold the idea of fracking in order to release the natural gas being harbored within the borders of our own country. By making Natural gas more plentiful to the public, it would force automakers to see that there is indeed a real and viable market for CNG cars. Domestic automakers in Detroit have officially announced that they will once again manufacture CNG cars in the USA within the coming years. While this is a step in the right direction, the biggest challenge to rolling out CNG cars is the limited number of stations that offer CNG pumps. By encouraging natural gas production, it would force gas stations to offer this type of fuel to help the CNG car market get going.
Compressed Natural Gas (Photo credit: modenadude)
It is important to note that CNG vehicles have been around since the late 1970′s, but supply and demand are the main things to blame for why this technology has not gone mainstream. The only way to get this technology into the garage’s of the average American is by making this resource easily accessible so that consumers can easily fill up their CNG car. While we are a ways off from any type of energy independence in this country, this report is a very good indication that our country is heading in the right direction, despite the fact there there is nothing that can be done to alleviate the current oil crisis.
