Entries Tagged 'CNG USA' ↓

If you’re a member of www.cngchat.com, you may came across this post titled ‘CNG Toyotas may or may not be coming’. A forummer called Dmitry emailed Toyota and received a reply via a phone call from Toyota representatives saying:

“Thank you for your letter. We’ve received a lot of CNG inquiries lately. We’ll forward your letter to the management right away. But we do not guarantee anything”

Below is the original letter from Dmitry:

 July 8, 2008

Dear Toyota representative,

I have no illusions regarding this letter, but at least I hope you will read it.

If you are in US, you know what the gas prices are. According to New York Times this will put 10 million vehicles off the roads within the next 3 years! I would like to suggest Toyota to start selling it’s alternative fuel models, namely Crown Comfort (LPG) and Probox (CNG) in US.

To get more info about either one of these fuels, please visit www.cngchat.com. But first let me remind you that Honda is already selling CNG Civic GX to the public, and is hugely successful, especially in places like California and Utah, where CNG is easily accessible and cheap. Why is my favorite Toyota hesitating?

The commercial sector will be the first to pick up on these new models. Crown Comfort taxis are already the number one taxi vehicle elsewhere but the US. What about small scale delivery – Probox could fit right in. You won’t find any reasonable explanation why the country with the most number of small businesses in the world is missing on these 3 world wonders.

By 3rd world wonder I mean Hiace van, and I have already written to Toyota about that two times, and every time I got a generic response. Something along the lines of: “Thank you for the letter, we will file it”. So I will stop here, because obviously it’s a waste of time and paper. But in my heart I’ll keep hoping, that one day I’ll have LPG Crown Comfort for my owner operator taxi, and CNG Probox for my wife.

Have a nice day!

By Clark Howard, Counsumer Advocate on CNN

CNN REPORT:

(Note ironic news story after this report at the end)

Natural gas has been used as internal combustion motor fuel for years. The technology is mature and proven and the disrtibution infrastructure is in place. It has never been utilized in a significant way for cars. This could be easily done.

Natural gas is distributed to millions of homes. Most any car can be converted to use it. All that would be needed at the home is a compressor tapped into the gas line (on a separate meter to tax it, of course), a safe, idiot-proof coupliing and hose, and the car modification. I guesstimate that all of this would cost less than $5000 for most cars. Gas companies would have incentive to subsidize conversion costs, as they have other gas appliances for years.

If cars were manufactured new this way, the cost increase would be negligible.

Other advantages are: near- zero retail distribution costs, a stable market for natural gas that would stimulate drilling and moderate weather-induced price swings, and very low emissions. Demand pressure would be taken off of oil. NG cars would have much more power and range than electrics without all the unproven technology and high cost of hydrogen fuel cells and environmental disposal problems of discarded batteries.