sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

[utahpilot]

why the change in prices for CNG cars in UT lately? gas is still over 4 bucks, nothing is different. why the change?

[CNGLO]

Re: sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

I think the market might be a bit saturated for those interested in natural gas vehicles. Ron Brown at Ken Garff Honda had deposits on about 330 Civic Gx's a week ago. I also think the burden on the Utah fueling infrastructure might be giving many cause to rethink an NGV purchase.

[freedml]

Re: sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

When gasoline and crude oil were chugging up and up, and gasoline passed $4 a mass of people got serious about alternatives. Prices went up where they didn't 'pencil out' at the moment, and gasoline and crude started going down (and Utah CNG prices went up a bit) so the market has calmed down. But, when gasoline chugs up again and hits $5 watch it happen again...

[Yroc]

Re: sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

I thinks is the over used stations that cannot keep up with demand, and then when one goes down....it just sucks. People are hearing about waiting for gas and you already have to go out of your way to get it, so if they are already nervous about it, they don't even want to deal with that. I know I'm glad I have a bifuel, if there is a line, I drive on...

[Lakewood90712]

Re: sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

I also think the burden on the Utah fueling infrastructure might be giving many cause to rethink an NGV purchase.

I'm a little off topic, but , this would be a great time for the state government of one of the states with plentiful gas supplies to grant a special tax credit to anyone, including Fuelmaker to set up a local mfg plant for home fueling appliances.

Even with the most cng vehicles in the nation , in California labor cost's are too high and our state government is far too stupid to act upon this .

I think Utah , OK , etc. could really get it to work .

[CraziFuzzy]

Re: sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

TBH though, even with the most CNG cars, our stations aren't anything NEAR as overworked as UT. Of course, I believe this is because the state DIDN'T to what Utah did with the price-fixing. Supply and demand were allowed to rise up naturally, and as a result, the public fueling infrastructure in CA is considerably more reliable that in UT, where demand was pushed by the state government (by price-fixing the fuel costs), without the same effort being put to the supply side of things.

[bruin]

Re: sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

I would say that there are several factors affecting CNG sales in Utah.

1> Gasoline prices have dropped and some are encouraged that they might continue to drop. ( I doubt they will fall below $3.50 and in mid-winter are likely to sky again.)

2> CNG price jumped from .65 to .86 and is scheduled to hit 1.06 and the alt-fuel naysayers and fence-sitters believe that CNG will simply continue to rocket upwards. ( We can probably expect that CNG will continue on the rise but I personally doubt the increase with pull it up to gasoline levels anytime in the near future.)

3> Loads of CNG cars and conversions dumped on the UTAH market with some nasty price-gouging going on even for some very high-mileage vehicles. ( capitalism works to the advantage of those who do research on both sides of the deal)

4> Fueling station lines, low pressure, systems down, etc. ( It made my heart glad to hear that a single-mother in the Cedar City area backed out of a deal to buy a CNG-only Crown Vic even with extended tanks.)

5 >After-purchase costs related to buying some CNG vehicles can be rather horrible (shall we say the fearful word " compuvalve " )

[freedml]

Re: sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

The high cost of the compuvalve is bad enough, but even worse is they're on endless backorder. I had to wait something like 6 weeks for an HPR for my GX to come from Japan!

[clean03]

Re: sales for CNG cars once hot now stone cold?

Compuvalve equipped vehicles are very expensive to maintain. If one looks at the vehicles available to buy (other than a civic) the largest share of them have one. I would guess if no one repairs them that its going to cripple allot of NGV's in the future. I hate to see this happen and hope that someone else can fix them in a timely manner.