Toyota Jumps On Natural Gas Bandwagon With CNG Hybrid for LA Auto Show
By John O'Dell September 24, 2008By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
PORTLAND, Or. - In a move that could give a big boost to proponents of natural gas as an automotive fuel, hybrid car leader Toyota Motor Corp. says it will show off a "concept" CNG Camry Hybrid at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November.
Bill Reinert, Toyota's North American advanced technology vehicles manager, said the automaker hasn't decided to put the car into production and wants to use its showing at the heavily visited LA show to gather consumer feedback on the idea of a hybrid that used compressed national gas to power its internal combustion engine.
For consumers where CNG is available - there are only 1,000 pumps nationwide and half aren't open to the public - the idea has merit.
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2009 Camry Hybrid uses gasoline enging, electric motgor. Is a natural gas-electric version soon to follow?
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CNG delivers the same fuel economy as gasoline and is considerably less expensive.
It also is far cleaner-burning that gasoline, with fewer smog-causing emissions and less carbon dioxide.
For Toyota, and other automakers, use of CNG helps overcome growing concerns about the impacts on their businesses of global oil depletion and the drive for U.S. energy independence.
The announcement was made Tuesday in Portland during a day-long Toyota Sustainable Mobility Conference at which one keynote speaker pointed out that of all the alternative fuels on the table today, natural gas is perhaps the easiest to put into widespread use, and also is the most plentiful.
"It lasts a lot longer than crude oil," noted oil industry consultant Peter Wells said of the global supply of natural gas.
Toyota's concept marries its Hybrid Synergy Drive system to a CNG-fueled four-cylinder engine that likely would be modified for high compression to optimize natural gas' high octane level.
It would be the only CNG-electric hybrid on the road if put into production, and only one of two factory-built CNG vehicles.
The other is Honda Motor Co.'s Civic GX, which has been sold to fleet customers in limited numbers in only a handful of states and to retail customers in just two states - California and New York.
In the past year, Honda has seen retail demand for the converted Civic soar as gasoline prices have climbed and earlier this year dealers in California reported waiting lists for a car many couldn't sell two years ago.
That led the company to announce that it is doubling annual production next year, to about 2,000 vehicles, with an eye to boosting the number to 4,000 if demand continues.
If Toyota were to join the market with a CNG-electric hybrid, demand could increase further, pushing energy companies to begin opening more natural gas fuel stations - which, in turn, could open more markets for cars and trucks that use the fuel.
Ford, General Motors and Chrysler all made CNG pickups and car in the past but had stopped production by 2004 to focus on hybrids and other technologies, largely because of the lack of a natural gas fueling infrastructure to support the vehicles.
CNG fuel is sold by public utilities, government agencies and private companies - Clean Energy, a Southern California company co-founded by Texas energy billionaire T. Boone Pickens - is the country's largest CNG retailer.
Because of a federal subsidy of 50-cents a gallon that utilities and government agencies must pass on to the public, pump prices for natural gas can range from more than $1 a gallon less than gasoline to about 40-cents a gallon less.
Pickens, still a major shareholder at Clean Energy, which doesn't subtract the subsidy from its pump price but uses it to finance conversions of taxis and other commercial fleet vehicles to CNG, recently launched a $58 million campaign to promote use of natural gas as a transportation fuel. The former oilman (Mesa Petroleum) now has major natural gas holdings.
Toyota's Reinhert said his company hasn't discussed CNG vehicles with Pickens and made its decision to build the natural gas hybrid concept car long before Pickens' natural gas initiative was launched.
The automaker offered a CNG Camry in its regular model lineup in 1999 but discontinued the car after one year because, in an era of cheap gasoline, customers saw little benefit in a vehicle that required special refueling techniques - the fuel hose is pressurized and seals to the vehicle's fuel tank with a special valve - at stations that, for the most part, weren't readily available.
Now though, Toyota believes growing awareness of the need to find and use alternatives to gasoline has been accompanied by a growing willingness among consumers to adapt to specialized refueling techniques and to put up with more widely spaced fuel stations.
And there's another reason Toyota has rediscovered natural gas.
While pushing gas-electric hybrids and an interim step on the path to oil independence, the company has continued developing its hydrogen fuel-cell system and says that fuel-cell electric vehicles are key to an oil-free future for personal transportation.
Much of the hydrogen produced today is made from natural gas, and the fuel systems are similar although hydrogen is stored and pumped at much higher pressures.
An expanded national fueling infrastructure for compressed natural gas, said Reinhert, would serve as a base on which a compressed hydrogen gas fueling system could be overlaid when fuel cell vehicles are ready for commercial production.
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Edmunds' longterm fleet includes a 2007 Honda Civic GX natural gas sedan. Click here for our blog on the car.
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