Natural gas car cuts fuel costs

There's never a line when Scott Mills gasses up his car.
But there is nowhere to buy coffee or potato chips, either.
When you drive a car powered by natural gas, it's all about such trade-offs.
Mills, a 44-year real-estate broker, recently became one of the very few in Colorado to drive such a car. According to the Colorado Department of Revenue, there were just 29 registered in the state last year, up from a dozen the year before.
In 2005, Honda began making the Civic GX, the only natural gas-powered car available to the public. According to auto industry publications, it made 1,000  this year, with plans to double production to 2,000 in 2009.
Earlier this year, when gasoline prices skyrocketed to nearly $4 a gallon, Mills, who does a lot of driving around town for his job and his two teenagers, began looking at alternative fuel cars.
He could buy the equivalent of a gallon of natural gas for $2 cheaper than gasoline, with about the same gas mileage as a regular Civic, an average of 28 miles per gallon, he learned. There are a host of state and federal tax credits available, and, best of all, for him, the emissions are 90 percent cleaner than the average gasoline-powered car.
"I run, and I want to breathe clean air, and I thought, ‘I want to do my part,'" he said. "People need to know there are other kinds of cars out there."
Going through a Denver Honda dealership, he spent six months on a waiting list. Most are sold in California and New York, the only states where dealerships have them for sale, because those states have the most natural gas pumps. One car finally became available last month, brought to Denver from a New York dealership.
It cost $25,000, about $7,000 more than a regular Civic. But the federal government offers a $4,000 tax credit, and Colorado offers a generous tax credit of 85 percent of the extra cost above a regular car, $5,800 in this case, and Mills figures he made out alright.
It rides like a regular car, with slightly less horsepower. Honda offers a device that lets owners fill their tanks from their home's gas line, though Mills hasn't yet bought one.
Instead, he gasses up at one of the two natural gas refueling stations in Colorado Springs, one on Fort Carson and the other at the Colorado Springs Utilities service center on North Tijuana Street. The tank holds eight gallons.
Therein lies the biggest problem with natural gas cars.
While some areas have large natural gas infrastructures, there are just a handful of places in Colorado with fueling stations. Mills can't go too far west, because past Denver, there aren't any stations until you reach the middle of Utah. To the east, there aren't any stations until you reach Lawrence, Kansas. To the south, the nearest is Las Vegas, N.M., which at 257 miles is pushing the car's limit.
That is fine with Mills, who has a gasoline car for longer journeys.
"We bought this as a commuter car. We're not going cross-country in it," he  said.
At the station on North Tijuana Street on Wednesday, Mills saw a rare site: another driver at the gas pump.
Gregory Routt pulled up in a work van, a U.S. government vehicle. Until 2005, government vehicles were the vast majority of natural gas-powered vehicles on the road.
"I'd be scared to take a road trip unless you've done research on the ‘net to find out where the stations are," Routt told Mills. "I hope it works out for you, but me personally, I'd be scared."
Mills said it's a trade-off. He hopes, as more people buy the cars, the fuel infrastructure will improve.
Some countries are light years ahead of the U.S. in such technologies. Argentina has 1.4 million natural gas-powered cars on the roads this year, compared to 130,000 in the U.S., according to auto industry publications.
"I almost wish gas prices would go back up, because we'd be more hard-pressed to look at these things and develop them for the future," he said.
He predicts gasoline prices, which in Colorado Springs were about 30 cents cheaper than the price at the natural gas pump Wednesday, will rise again. Looking at natural gas for fuel, he said, is a long-term proposition, especially considering the U.S., including Colorado, has such great stores of natural gas.
"It's clear the product is right here in Colorado. It supports jobs right here in Colorado, rather than some Middle Eastern country that hates us," he said.