Unfortunately, I doubt Honda will sell many of the natural gas Civic. Four reasons: 1) it is more expensive than the hybrid Civic that does 44 MPG combined versus only 31 MPGe for the natural gas, 2) a lack of natural gas fueling stations in the US only 950 stations, 3) limited range 242 miles = 7.8*31 and 4) limited trunk space.

The natural gas Civic could be more attractive if it was bi-fuel (CNG and gasoline) and if it got start stop technology that increased its combined MPGe to say 34 MPGe.

The CNG Civic’s attractiveness is that it is a more affordable option than battery electric vehicles to be sure you support the local economy and does not send money abroad every time you fuel.

Never mind - I see your comparison is to the hybrid, that explains the differential in MPGe. So the challenge is not combustion, the problem is the lack of scale manufacturing efficiencies for the changes to the vehicle due to the natural gas requirements.

It may make a low cost conversion to an CNG/M85 dual fuel vehicle.. it has high compression already, perhaps a second set of fuel injectors and perhaps something else to deal with the corrosive issues of methanol combustion.

This car is locally fueled, it competes only with electrics in that regard. It should be supported by Fed/State tax credits to the same extent.

Hope Honda fixed the problem with the engine block due to a casting defect. The block tends to develop a crack at the exhaust manifold on some Civics. Honda never issued a recall but was forced to extend the warranty after numerous complaints about engine failures.

NG vehicles may have much value, especially in places like Minnesota where we get 80% of our gasoline from Canadian shale oil. Al Gore commented that driving a Prius using shale oil is equivalent to driving a Hummer. If true, it is frightening.

@Roger: From the article above:

A 5-speed automatic transmission is standard equipment.

Thanks, Nick, for the correction.

@Aussie,
The NG Civic is optimized for NG with higher compression ratio, hence cannot run on petrol. Beside, it is already very expensive running on NG alone!

@Aussie

As RP pointed out the NG Civic is optimized for NG with higher compression ratio. NG has a octane rating of 120, for gasoline it's 92. You can burn NG in an engine with a lower compression ratio meant for gasoline but...

I believe its all well and good that Honda is offering the CNG-version of the Civic in 35 states, not just four like they have up until now. Purchase of the CNG-Civic by businesses and government agencies (federal, state and local) should be encouraged.

But if we really want to see more use of natural gas as a transportation fuel, Honda and other automotive manufacturers should offer pickup trucks, vans (i.e. Oddessy) and vehicles like school buses with CNG-engines.

An advantage of using CNG in a larger vehicle like a truck is, one has more room to play around with. Hence it might be feasible to combine CNG with either hydraulic or electric apparatus to recover braking energy and provide launch assist. This would further reduce CO2 emissions.

State and federal tax credits on the natural gas version offset much or all of the price difference. Same story for installing home refueling equipment such as the Phill. The remaining price premium can be small enough that non-green buyers will go for them just so they can drive solo in the carpool lanes- that's why they've been able to sell some in California, Arizona, etc. Their challenge now is to be able to get considered as the world focuses on electric vehicles. I'd guess that the size of the price premium is somewhat dictated by the amount of tax credit available and the lack of competitors in the US market.

I've driven bi-fuel and dedicated CNG vehicles in fleets, including previous generations of the CNG Civic, and found that CNG is best done as a dedicated fuel. The ignition characteristics of CNG and gasoline are too different (especially low-octane American gasoline); if you make an engine to do both, it will hate running on CNG- meaning that when running on CNG, it's hard to start, has much less power output, and gets poor fuel economy. By designing the engine for CNG only, most of the fuel economy penalty and power loss is eliminated, and the engine will start as easily as any gasoline car. Bi-fuel might might work better if the designer could be sure the engine would never see low-octane gasoline- this closes the gap between the combustion characteristics of the two fuels and allows use of a higher compression ratio. But American fleet buyers would never tolerate a requirement for premium fuel, and in parts of the US, premium fuel is still fairly low-octane (91 RON or 87 in the typical American R+M/2 units).

OK, I goofed my octane discussion. I said premium unleaded but then gave numbers for regular unleaded. Premium fuel in parts of the US (like California) is 95 RON, 91 R+M/2.

New CNG car sales will never take off big until he EPA gets out of the way. The price point is too high. It should only cost about $1200-$3000 to convert an engine to CNG. The EPA forces car makers to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single engine model "approval". CNG conversions are a great way to go. I learned a lot from www.skycng.com. The dont sell anything, just a reliable source for conversion regulations and emissions questions, etc.