I love my natural gas car. I love it. I love cruising in the carpool lane by myself because I have a “C plate.” I love filling up my tank for $7. I love that I once made it ROUND TRIP from Salt Lake City to Vegas (an 8-hour trip) for $35.00.
But do I think that natural gas is right for everyone? No I do not.
What is a “natural gas” vehicle?
A natural gas vehicle is especially made to use natural gas instead of petroleum. Natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel and in a lot of places it is still cheaper than regular gas. There are also duel fuel cars that will use both regular gas and natural gas. These have two separate tanks. Lastly there are converted natural gas cars in which the natural gas tank has been added to the car.
Why would I buy a natural gas car?
I never thought that I would get a natural gas vehicle. But it was 2009 when gas prices were still really high. The lemon of a used car I bought was smoking as I arrived at work. It was also the year of the “Cash for Clunkers” rebate for turning in your vehicle, so looking at a new car was a good idea.
The dealership had an overabundance of natural gas vehicles. Just the year before, gas was over $4.00 and the salesman said that at that time there was an 8-month waiting list for natural gas vehicles. Now he had several that he could not sell.
The benefits were pretty cool.
We weighed the options carefully. I drove 43 miles to work and back every day and this car got 35 miles per gallon. Plus at the time in Utah it was only $0.98 a gallon for natural gas (now it is $1.25 in Utah). Burning natural gas is easier on an engine, so the oil wouldn’t need to be changed as often, and the car could live thousands of miles longer than the petroleum burning version of the same car.
I am also a self-proclaimed “semi-environmentalist” and this car had the quote, “cleanest burning combustion engine in the world.” That just sounded pretty cool.
The best part was that there was a $4000 federal tax credit, and a $2500 state tax credit from Utah (very few states have this credit). So I added it up in my head — $200-250 savings in gas per month plus all of the rebates. I was thinking that the car would pay for itself in a few years.
The problems of natural gas vehicles.
The problem with natural gas is that there are not too many filling stations. There is one 3 miles from my home and another one 3 miles from my work. There is also one halfway between the two. But that leaves only three filling stations in Salt Lake City and its suburbs!
I am from Wyoming and there is only one natural gas filling station in the whole state! I couldn’t use my new car to drive to see my family. Well, I could have my dad pick me up halfway. But since I hadn’t had my dad pick me up for anything since junior high – I was soooo over that!
Also the price of natural gas goes up as I leave the state of Utah. It is around $2.50 in Nevada and in California. It is still cheaper than gas though!
We did make it round trip to Anaheim, but we were worried. We had to carefully map out the trip on the GPS so that we could find the stations. Some were hard to find (and not marked well). At one point there was a 150 gap between stations. We were so worried that we would run low that we didn’t run the air conditioner in June in Nevada!
The absolute worst thing is when the filling stations are “down.” This has only happened a few times, but when it happens, it can be worrisome! I went to the filling station it was either empty or they were working on it. I run my gas pretty low more often than I like to admit, so sometimes that is pretty scary!
Lastly, the tank is really large, so my trunk space was cut in half. I have to share a suitcase with my husband. Yikes!
Do I still love the car? Yes I do. Would I buy it if I had to do it all over again? Absolutely. Weigh your options and see if it is right for you. Remember I save $2400 a year on gas, which is good because we needed that money: it just barely covered the surgery when the cat swallowed one of the boy’s toys!
Take the rebate and put it in a savings account or money market account first!
