I was driving in South Minneapolis near the one natural gas filling station in the Twin Cites. It was closed but they had an adjustable sign that said "gasoline equivalent $2.29". Nearby gasoline was $3.29, I filled today and $3.24.
The local price of unleaded regular dropped forty cents in the last couple of months. I would doubt that natural gas with road tax dropped much if at all. Basically, it looks like natural gas as motor fuel is around two third the cost unleaded regular for the same miles driven.
Here is a fun site: http://www.usgasvehicles.com/home.php
Redrant: There is a "road tax", at least at the federal level, for natural gas based on BTU equivalent. Figure your fuel cost per mile will drop one-third with a natural gas vehicle. I anticipate abundant natural gas for the decades, which should cover the working life of the vehicle. With my Ford Ranger pickup it would take 60,000 miles at a dollar per gallon savings to cover the basic 3,000 additional cost of a natural gas system. I expect the "decoupling" of the cost of natural gas and gasoline to continue to be wider so there could be greater savings.
In the last few months the price of gasoline has dropped forty cents here in the Twin Cities. If we go by stop nat gas prices the nat gas price has dropped a couple of pennies per gasoline gallon equivalent.
The first, and still only public fueling station in the Twin Cities, MN (population 2,000,000) was established in the mid 1970's and we still only have one. Natural gas in vehicles has a good safety record in crashes. The new providers of "home filling stations" show their product in attached garages, which I am a bit wary about. Perhaps
they have "sniffers" which would shut the system down if there was a leak. I still prefer good ventilation. The historic safety record is good.
If there is a government subsidy I would have it in the form of natural gas filling stations, with an emphasis on those with public access in areas where natural gas filling stations do not currently exist. In a car conversion, the range is
reduced by 50% and tank filling takes longer because gaseous gasses heat when compressed. T Boone Pickens had the right idea using natural gas in garbage trucks. That said, natural gas has lower pollution than diesel on unleaded gas. For more than thirty years nat gas garbage trucks have been used in some parts of the Southern California "pollution belt" so there should be lots of data. Greg Lang
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