On the Road Again

In the early 1990s, all three major American automakers started building clean and efficient natural gas vehicles. But when a new federal law failed to create an expected guaranteed market, the momentum died. Today, only Honda sells a model in the United States — and in minuscule numbers.

Now, as drivers reel from the shock of high gasoline prices, natural gas vehicles are attracting renewed interest both on Capitol Hill and in Detroit. Proposed legislation and a new impetus at General Motors may bring a modest revival.

But there are mammoth hurdles to getting large numbers of natural gas vehicles on the road. Most troublesome is simply where to buy the fuel. Of 176,000 gas stations in the United States, fewer than 2,000 carry natural gas, according to the Department of Energy. In the Washington area, there are just four. There are 8 million natural gas vehicles worldwide, but only 120,000 in the United States, according to Natural Gas Vehicles for America, and most of those are in fleets owned by governments and corporations. Washington’s Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, for instance, runs 439 buses powered by natural gas.

Washington Post