The public appeal of the Honda Civic that runs on natural gas is that it's good for the environment, but the private charm of the package is that it uses a home refueling system that greatly reduces owner irritation.
This assumes of course that you're not one of those people who actually likes to spend time getting gasoline. For the rest of us, using the Canadian-made Phill package to refuel an NGV Honda Civic at home every day is a dream come true.
Unfortunately, Honda Canada has decided not to make the natural gas-powered Civic GX model available.
This does not mean that the driver of pretty much any vehicle could not get it converted to run on natural gas as well as gasoline and refuel at home using Phill, but it does raise the degree of difficulty in making it happen.
The economics of converting to natural gas are complicated and vary by your location, but they almost never take into consideration the time and aggravation saved from home refueling. When you look into the costs of using natural gas, you'll have to put your own value on that.
You can check up on FuelMaker's products and general situation at www.fuelmaker.com to see if Phill might be right for you, but here are some general points to consider.
Phill is designed for use with consumer vehicles in residential environments, which includes inside your garage or carport or outside. If it's inside, however, it must be vented to the outside.
Phill is designed to offer ease of operation with simple ''start'' and ''stop'' buttons and will automatically turn itself off when the tank is full.
It weighs about 43 kg, is not that obtrusive, and has to be attached to a residential natural gas supply lines, like those that supply home furnaces or hot water heaters.
The 800-watt system also works with either 120- or 240-volt electrical supplies and uses less electricity than most small kitchen appliances.
On average, says FuelMaker, it will take approximately four hours to replenish the fuel consumed in 80 km of driving based on a vehicle consumption rate of eight litres per 100 km. The range of every vehicle is different, of course, but it's usually easy to go 300 km on a tank, which is more distance than most people go in a week, let alone a day.
In all cases, installation of Phill must comply with applicable building codes and regulations, though that's not usually too much of a problem.
On the environmental front, the Civic GX is also the only vehicle distributed in the U.S. that is certified to the stringent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tier 2-Bin 2 emissions standard, and meets California's Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emission Vehicle (AT-PZEV) standards.
The U.S. has certified the U.S.-made Honda Civic GX as "the cleanest internal combustion engine-powered vehicle." The GX was also the first vehicle to earn AT-PZEV status in California and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) recently named the Civic GX as the ''Greenest Vehicle of the Year'' in overall environmental performance, ahead of even hybrid vehicles.
''For years, the Civic GX has ranked at or near the top of ACEEE's Green Book environmental vehicle rankings," said Bill Prindle, ACEEE's deputy director.
photo:Honda America
This assumes of course that you're not one of those people who actually likes to spend time getting gasoline. For the rest of us, using the Canadian-made Phill package to refuel an NGV Honda Civic at home every day is a dream come true.
 |
| Honda Civic GX (photo : Honda America) |
This does not mean that the driver of pretty much any vehicle could not get it converted to run on natural gas as well as gasoline and refuel at home using Phill, but it does raise the degree of difficulty in making it happen.
The economics of converting to natural gas are complicated and vary by your location, but they almost never take into consideration the time and aggravation saved from home refueling. When you look into the costs of using natural gas, you'll have to put your own value on that.
You can check up on FuelMaker's products and general situation at www.fuelmaker.com to see if Phill might be right for you, but here are some general points to consider.
Phill is designed for use with consumer vehicles in residential environments, which includes inside your garage or carport or outside. If it's inside, however, it must be vented to the outside.
 |
It weighs about 43 kg, is not that obtrusive, and has to be attached to a residential natural gas supply lines, like those that supply home furnaces or hot water heaters.
The 800-watt system also works with either 120- or 240-volt electrical supplies and uses less electricity than most small kitchen appliances.
On average, says FuelMaker, it will take approximately four hours to replenish the fuel consumed in 80 km of driving based on a vehicle consumption rate of eight litres per 100 km. The range of every vehicle is different, of course, but it's usually easy to go 300 km on a tank, which is more distance than most people go in a week, let alone a day.
In all cases, installation of Phill must comply with applicable building codes and regulations, though that's not usually too much of a problem.
 |
| Honda Civic GX (photo : Honda America) |
The U.S. has certified the U.S.-made Honda Civic GX as "the cleanest internal combustion engine-powered vehicle." The GX was also the first vehicle to earn AT-PZEV status in California and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) recently named the Civic GX as the ''Greenest Vehicle of the Year'' in overall environmental performance, ahead of even hybrid vehicles.
''For years, the Civic GX has ranked at or near the top of ACEEE's Green Book environmental vehicle rankings," said Bill Prindle, ACEEE's deputy director.
photo:Honda America
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