Honda Civic GX Natural-Gas Vehicle: First Drive Review

Good read, apparently the GX model for 2012 will be available for Canada, potentially on a order by order basis....
So here's the bottom line on driving a natural-gas vehicle: If you didn't have to refill it, you'd never know it was fueled on anything other than gasoline.

Except for two things, that is: First, you lose up to half of a gasoline car's range, with our natural-gas fueled Honda Civic GX only providing about 180 miles before it needs more fuel (against up to 400 miles for the gasoline Civic).

Second, you also lose about two-thirds of the trunk space offered in a standard Civic sedan, because the high-pressure natural-gas tank is located at the rear of the trunk.

Driving: indistinguishable
Other than that, natural gas may be the easiest alternative fuel to use--if there's a public fueling station nearby.

The performance is indistinguishable from the gasoline equivalent, and from behind the wheel, you'd never know it wasn't the real stuff.

If anything, we thought our GX might be a bit quieter than other Civics we've tested, but we couldn't do a side-by-side comparison to check out our impression.

Only one test car nationwide
Honda is presently the only manufacturer that sells natural-gas vehicles to the public, and at the moment, it only does so in four regional markets--Oklahoma being the latest.

We'd wanted to test a Civic GX for a while, but it took a trip to Los Angeles to make it happen, because there's only a single one in the company's nationwide media fleet.

We actually drove a 2009 model, but the 2010 and 2011 models are essentially unchanged. The Civic will be entirely redesigned for the 2012 model year, when Honda says it will make the GX natural-gas model available in all 50 states.

Pricey for a base Civic
On the window sticker, the suggested retail price for the Civic GX is listed as $18,255. Then in very tiny letters, there's a single line that says, "Incremental Cost (CNG)" and adds another $6,935, for a total price of $25,860.

Source;
http://www.greencarreports.com/review/1051854_honda-civic-gx-natural-gas-vehicle-first-drive-review

Honda Preparing to Expand U.S. Sales of Natural Gas Civics

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Honda Motor Co., the only automaker currently selling a natural gas-powered car to U.S. consumers, plans to expand sales to most of the 50 states next year, from four now, U.S. Executive Vice President John Mendel said.

“You will see us expand sale of Civic GX across the country,” Mendel told reporters in a briefing at the Los Angeles Auto Show yesterday. “It’ll be a whole new vehicle,” he said, without elaborating.

The Tokyo-based company will make the sales announcement in conjunction with plans to revamp the Civic lineup in 2011, Mendel said.

Honda, which has sold a natural gas Civic for the past decade, promotes the fuel as causing less pollution than gasoline and sourced entirely from domestic sources. Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC have also said they’re developing natural gas models.

The current federal incentive for the purchase of a natural gas car is $3,500, Mendel said. While Honda has sold about 2,000 units of the Civic GX a year, it will sell only about 1,200 this year because of the plans to revamp the model, he said.

Honda gained 1.3 percent in Tokyo trading to 3,125 yen as of 1:23 p.m. The stock has increased 0.5 percent in 2010.

Global Warming
Boone Pickens, founder and chairman of Dallas-based BP Capital LLC, said yesterday a bill to help convert the U.S. trucking fleets to natural gas may pass Congress by year-end with bipartisan support.

Pickens wants buses and trucks that run on natural gas to replace the diesel and gasoline engines that contribute to global warming and increase U.S. oil imports that cost the country as much as $1 billion a day.

The measure, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced in September, has support from Republicans and Democrats and may be the first major legislation during the Obama administration to win support from both parties, Pickens said.

Mendel declined to provide a sales goal for the revamped natural gas Civic. Honda’s U.S. unit is based in Torrance, California.

Source;
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-17/honda-preparing-to-expand-u-s-sales-of-natural-gas-civics.html

Honda Confirms Next-Gen Civic GX Natural Gas Vehicle

by Brian Moody

In Translogic episode 6.2 we took a look at one of the cleanest yet most obscure green cars sold in the U.S., the 2011 Honda Civic GX. The GX is just like every other Civic, except that its engine burns compressed natural gas (CNG) rather than gasoline.

Honda confirmed to Translogic that when the company redesigns the Civic for its ninth generation, there will be a Honda Civic GX. Since the GX sells in such small numbers, there was speculation that it might be dropped when Honda undertakes a complete overhaul of the Civic, as it has scheduled for the 2012 model year. But Honda is dedicated to the CNG Civic and says hopes to make it a bigger part of their alt-fuel efforts.

Ever since the car's introduction in 1998, the Civic GX has really been more of a fleet car rather than typical retail car the average shopper would consider. In 2009, Honda sold just 1,757 Civic GX's.

The car's fleet origins mean the interior is a little lackluster. It's no secret, Honda already knows the Civic GX lacks the bells and whistles even sub-compact owners have come to expect. Jessica Fini with American Honda said "Due to customer feedback, the 2012 Honda Civic GX NGV will be more comfortable and offered with desirable options like a navigation system and upgraded stereo." Perhaps the secret of the Civic GX is about to get out.

Honda also confirmed that the 2012 Honda Civic GX will not deviate from the current car's basic formula of being a Honda Civic first and foremost and a NGV second. The Formula seems to be working; the 2010 Civic GX was named "Greenest Vehicle" by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.

But the picture isn't all rosy for the natural gas powered Civic, a lack of public CNG fueling stations could put a damper on Civic GX ownership. For instance, according to cngprices.com, there are just two CNG refueling stations in the Atlanta area and one requires special key-card for access and there's just one CNG station between Miami and Jacksonville. On the other hand, cities like Boston, Denver, New York, Salt Lake City and Tulsa, Oklahoma have many CNG stations. California seems to have the most CNG stations of any other state: San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles combined probably have more re-fueling stations than the entire rest of the country. Even so, some CNG stations in the Los Angeles area are 10-20 miles away from the center of many suburban communities. There is a reward once you find a station, many people are paying the equivalent of $1.07-$2.60 per gallon.

Some Civic GX owners can capitalize on the low price of CNG and skip the infrastructure worries by outfitting their homes with a refueling mechanism that uses the natural gas already piped to most homes. The cost is about $4,600 but you can get a tax credit of $2,000. The company that made the Phill refueling unit was purchased by another company so it's unclear if an individual in every state can still get a natural gas compressor installed at home. Gas Equipment Systems Inc has offices in California and Texas so that's a good place to start

Honda says the Civic GX is the cleanest burning internal combustion engine in the world. But for every advantage with the CNG powered Civic, there seems to be a disadvantage. The Civic GX isn't especially thrilling to drive; with its 1.8 liter engine making just 113 hp, the car feels slower than a regular Civic. A gasoline powered Civic with a 1.8 liter engine makes 140 hp – a difference that's noticeable to the average driver. Also, the Honda Civic GX costs a little more than $25,000. By comparison, a Honda Civic EX with leather and navigation is still about $2,000 less. And the Civic EX cruises to a combined EPA estimate of 29 mpg. The equivalent combined fuel economy estimate for the Civic GX is 28 mpg. Those who buy a new 2010 Honda Civic GX may qualify for a $4,000 tax credit and Californians who buy a new Civic GX will qualify for the states zero emission HOV stickers which means you can use the carpool lane even if you're alone in the car.

In the end, the Honda Civic GX's green credential are rock solid, what's not so clear is if the car makes sense for the average green leaning motorist. Honda already has a Civic Hybrid, Insight Hybrid and the sporty CR-Z Hybrid plus the gasoline powered Honda Fit gets a respectable 36 miles per gallon on the highway. The difference is all of Honda's fuel sippers can be fueled up at the local filling station while the Civic GX can't and that's really the car's Achilles heel.

Source;

http://translogic.aolautos.com/2010/09/15/exclusive-honda-confirms-next-gen-civic-gx-natural-gas-vehicle/

Honda Civic GX the Greenest in USA for Seventh Successive Year

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has released its environmental ratings for model year 2010 vehicles. The “greenest vehicle” title goes once again to Honda’s natural gas-powered Civic GX. With a ‘green score’ of 57 points, the Honda Civic GX continues its dominance over nearest rivals the Toyota Prius on 52 points and the Honda Civic Hybrid on 51 points. The top ten green vehicles ranged from 57 down to 45 points out of a maximum 100.

The outcome is a repeat of last year’s result, and the year before that, in fact way back to 2004, when the Honda Civic GX was first named the ‘greenest vehicle’ sold in the US by the ACEEE, beating all gasoline vehicles, including all the gasoline hybrids. 2010 is the 10th annual “Green Book(R) Online” ranking of environmentally responsible vehicles.

ACEEE vehicle analyst Shruti Vaidyanathan noted, “While clean diesels once again perform well on our annual ranking, high prices both for the vehicles and for diesel fuel have kept them from really catching on thus far. They’re not having the impact in the U.S. that they have had in Europe, and as a result, manufacturers are scaling back production and promotion of diesels.”

ACEEE’s website greenercars.org provides the facts necessary to examine the eco-performance of any 2010 model. Vehicles are analyzed on the basis of a “Green Score,” a singular measure that incorporates unhealthy tailpipe emissions, fuel consumption, and emissions of gases that cause global warming.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing energy efficiency as a means of promoting economic prosperity, energy security, and environmental protection.

Source;
http://www.ngvglobal.com/honda-civic-gx-the-greenest-in-usa-for-seventh-successive-year-0121

Honda’s Rodney Dangerfield of Alt-Fuel Vehicles

With all the excitement about electric vehicles these days, the natural gas Honda Civic GX just doesn’t get any respect. Perhaps that’s because it still burns fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine, which may seem to some like incremental innovation. But a closer look at the car, which debuted in 1998 and has sold several thousand since then, reveals an interesting story about the cleanest internal combustion vehicle in the United States.

The Civic GX program was born of an era when the enemy was smog emissions and air quality, not global warming.

“At the time, we were considering the ZEV mandate,” Steve Ellis, Honda’s manager for alternative fuels sales and marketing, said in reference to the California Air Resources Board mandate that large manufacturers produce a certain number of zero-emissions vehicles. “The goal was originally clean air, so Honda engineers set out to use the cleanest fuel — natural gas.”

The program was launched alongside the EV Plus, Honda’s contribution to the first wave of modern, production electric vehicles spurred by California regulators in the 1990s. Honda leased about 300 EV Plus cars from 1997 to 1999, but ended the program shortly thereafter in favor of more extensive development of its hydrogen-fuel-cell program.

It is fairly easy and cheap to convert internal combustion engines to run on natural gas, but the results of a simple conversion are not very good. While the internals of an engine running on natural gas are very similar to those of a gasoline engine, the natural gas engine must run at a much higher compression ratio to generate the same power as a gasoline engine.

These days a typical gas engine runs at a compression ratio of about 9-to-1. A high performance car might run at 10.5-to-1. Generally speaking, the higher the compression ratio, the more power an engine can produce, but above a certain ratio gasoline will prematurely and spontaneously ignite in the chamber, which is something to avoid. The higher the octane rating of the fuel, the more it can tolerate high levels of compression.

Natural gas has a very high octane rating, so Honda engineered an engine with a 12.5-to-1 compression ratio, allowing it to produce roughly the same output as a similarly sized gasoline engine. To run that high, the internal components of the engine read like a spec sheet from an import-tuner magazine: forged pistons, modified valve seats, modified crank journals and a forged crankshaft. Even with these mods, the 1.8-liter Civic GX engine produces only 113 horsepower compared to 140 for the standard gas-powered 1.8 liter. Perhaps Honda should bump the compression to 15-to-1.

The fuel-delivery system is completely different, since it is delivering compressed gas from a 3,600 psi “tank” to the fuel rail at 40 psi instead of delivering liquid gasoline to the injectors. The catalytic converter is also different, having been optimized for natural gas combustion. As a result Honda claims smog emissions from the Civic GX are so low as to be immeasurable. The GX is the cleanest internal combustion car in America.

But the environmental debate about cars has moved on from the old enemies of nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide. Part of the reason is manufacturers have made internal combustion engines so “clean” with respect to smog emissions that customers can no longer kill themselves leaving the engine running in a closed garage. The other reason is that carbon dioxide, the friendly gas of soda pop and champagne and the same gas we exhale with every breath, has emerged as public enemy No. 1, surely dooming our civilization to mass extinction if we don’t act before the next election cycle.

What then will become of the Civic GX, which starts at $25,340? There is no way around the fact that when you burn a hydrocarbon you create carbon dioxide. Even though natural gas is the least carbon-intensive of fuels, with just one carbon atom to four hydrogen atoms, it saves only 25 percent on CO2 emissions per mile when compared to a comparable gas-powered car, according to Honda.

So the Civic GX may get no respect from the global warming crowd, but there are still reasons to support natural gas as a viable alternative to gasoline. While the carbon footprint per mile doesn’t compare favorably to an electric drivetrain, the fuel being burned is almost entirely domestically sourced, with only 2 percent imported from other countries.

Natural gas is a viable alternative across all types of vehicles in the fleet, from small cars like the Civic GX to large cargo haulers. So, the ability to displace foreign-sourced gasoline miles with domestically sourced natural gas miles is very attractive to those whose motivation to get off gas is more closely tied to energy independence and foreign policy.

Last but certainly not least, natural gas has been consistently cheaper than gasoline for the past decade by about 50 cents to a dollar per “gasoline-gallon equivalent,” and natural gas cars avoid the significant expense of batteries.

Even optimistic projections of electric-vehicle adoption still have internal combustion vehicles as the dominant form of transportation for many decades to come, so driving a shift from gasoline to natural gas is a smart goal to pursue in parallel with the electrification of the nation’s vehicle fleet.

Source;
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/11/honda-civic-gx/