Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Honda Kills CNG Home FuelMaker

Honda has pulled the plug on its wholly owned subsidiary Fuelmaker, which made the device for home CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicle refueling, calling a loan, and throwing Fuelmaker into receivership.
All Fuelmaker employees were abruptly fired without severance or warning, and given just a few hours to gather up their belongings and leave the premises. All Fuelmaker operations were suspended without notice to dealers, clients or suppliers. All assets were immediately placed on the auction block for liquidation.
Huh? Wasn't Honda the big promoter of CNG? The only car company offering one in the US, the CNG Civic? Wasn't the home fueling device meant to blaze the path to a home hydrogen fueling device?

Edwin Black does the reporting on the machinations around FuelMaker's bankruptcy last week. Read about it here.