AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT: T. Boone Pickens’ CNG Idea

August 1st, 2008 at 5:30pm

As heard on
WWJ Newsradio 950

Listen to this story:

NGV

Maybe you’ve seen the idea billionaire oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is proposing to run cars on natural gas. Now, Mr. Pickens may know a lot about the oil and gas industry. But getting people to buy cars that can run on natural gas may not be as easy as he thinks.

Until a few years ago General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota and Volvo all offered cars, trucks or vans that could run on compressed natural gas. But they never sold very well and today, in the United States, Honda is the only one left that sells a CNG car.

Even at that, Honda only offers one model that runs on natural gas, the Civic GX. And it will only sell them to individuals in California and New York. Honda boasts that its Civic GX is selling very well and that it’s sold out for 2008. But to put that in perspective, it will barely sell 1,000 natural gas cars this year. And that just shows that these cars can be a hard sell.

ShareShare PermalinkPermalink CommentsComments (2)

2 Comments to “AUTOMOTIVE INSIGHT: T. Boone Pickens’ CNG Idea”

  1. Chris Moran Says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.

    Chris Moran

  2. Tom Martin Says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 6:28 pm

    I like Pickens’ plan to create electricity from the wind and that should hold down the cost and pollution in regards to generation of electricity. This should in turn support plug-in hybrids and electric cars.

    I agree that we won’t have the infrastructure for compressed natural gas and CNG cars will be a difficult sale.

«
»