What is the cost per mile for a car running on compressed natural gas?

Question

Is is cheaper to run a car on natural gas or regular gasoline?

Answer 1

It is much cheaper to run a car on compressed natural gas and it is very convenient. When you convert your car to run on natural gas you can also get equipment that will take natural gas from the gas line to your home and  compress it so you can refuel your car at home without going to find a filling station that has compressed natural gas to refill your car.

To get the cost equivalent to gasoline, check your utility bill to see how much you are billed per thousand cubic feet. It will probably be written as "mcf" that means one thousand cubic feet. One thousand cubic feet is the energy equivalent of 8 gallons of gasoline.  Divide that number by 8 and that will give you your cost equivalent per gallon of gasoline.

Our local utility charges $20.84 per mcf, so that is equal to a cost of $2.61 per gallon energy equivalent.

I am told that our utility is very expensive, your local utility may charge less, just check your utility bill. One of my colleagues says that he pays only $11.00  per mcf, that is only $1.38 per gallon energy equivalent.

Although natural gas also produces co2 emissions it does reduce our dependence on imported oil, and it reduces your cost of operation.

Answer 2

I think it is quite expensive. You need equipment at home in some cases and it can be expensive to produce that natural gas at home. But it is clean. Natural gas cars are really more about environment, not necessarily about your pocket change. At this point at least.

Answer 3

I wish I could give you an exact figure, but I'm at a loss. I drive a natural gas Honda Civic.

It gets at least 180 miles per tank when filled at 3600 psi. MPG is 30/34. The station I fueled at the other day was selling at $2.27 gas gallon equivalent -- on the high side for my area (San Francisco Bay Area). Gasoline is selling for about $3.43 (I think). When I fuel at a fast fuel station like that, it generally takes about 5 gges. If I were to fuel at home with a Phill home fueling unit (which I don't have), it would do a slow fill and (I've heard) add more gges than a fast fill. (This is why I'm uncomfortable doing the calculation for you -- the gges for a full tank could be different. My guess is that fuel costs per mile are about half that of a gasoline car.)

Because of supply and demand, CNG is more expensive in winter (people heating their homes) and less in summer. Gasoline has the opposite pattern. Despite that, in the three years I've had the car, CNG was only more expensive once for about a month -- by 25 cents/gge, after Katrina.

Aside from fuel costs, CNG is very clean, and my car only needs oil changes every 7500 miles (per maintenance manual). CNG engines last a long time, and stay remarkably clean in comparison to gasoline engines.

In reference to the other answerer's comment... CNG tanks are *extremely* sturdy. Also, CNG is lighter than air, so if the tank does leak or burst in an accident, the gas disperses up into the air instead of pooling around the car like gasoline does.

Answer 4

i think the price of compressed gas is irelvent to the fact that it doesnt really help the enviorment ya its cheaper and has a less enviormental effect it is not reneable and still send off emissions

Answer 5

I have no idea, but it's a great question.

Answer 6

Natural Gas.

The Honda Civic GX is the cleanest full scale production vehicle made and the least expensive production vehicle per mile to operate.

http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8...

"The Civic GX is the cleanest internal combustion vehicle ever certified by the U.S. EPA and, with the introduction of home refueling, has the lowest fuel cost per mile of any new vehicle."

Answer 7

Here in New Zealand in the 70s the government of the time, gave a huge push for us to change to gas for running our vehicles. I did a coarse and was licensed to convert vehicles to gas. After installation costs were payed for, running on gas was cheaper than petrol. The disadvantages on compressed natural gas was the distance you could travel on one fill. A 50 litre(13gallons) tank had the same energy as 13 litres (3.5 gallons) of petrol. To get that amount of energy into the tank it had to be compressed to 3000 psi. This made the tanks extremely heavy. Suspension systems had to be beefed up. Safety certificates had to be done every year. Because of the short distances before refuelling , most vehicles were dual fuelled (petrol and gas) and to tune the engine to get the maximum out of gas meant harm to the engine if changed over to petrol so vehicles were tune for petrol. This meant maximum power from gas was not obtained. Some went the extra cost and fitted dual fuel ignition systems to compensate.The whole thing became a hassle and died of a natural death and now very few vehicles run on it. LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) on the other hand is totally different and we have new vehicles sold here dedicated LPG burners.Petrol and LPG, both being liquid , you can carry the same volume. LPG has a higher octane than petrol and to tune the engine to run the gas, a higher power output can be obtained. LPG burns cleaner than petrol and the engine oil doesn't go black with carbon particles. Distances between oil changes can be more than doubled if engine temperatures are kept up minimizing condensation build up in the engine.  Do the sums and work out for yourself if it's worth the change where you are. By the way I don't agree with c29531m that it's more dangerous than petrol in an accident. Gas tanks are stronger than petrol tanks and are fitted with valves to stop rapid discharge if a pipe is broken.

Answer 8

What happens when you get in an accident with compressed natural gas? Uh oh Booom Boooooom fried chicken