Fill 'er up in your garage

By ALASTAIR SLOANE, motoring editor

What if you never had to visit a petrol station again? What if you never had to worry about oil price rises affecting the cost of your motoring? What if ... you could fill up your car with gas at home?

In the United States, this is about to become a reality. A Honda Civic that runs on compressed natural gas from a home refuelling system will be available in California early next year.

Honda has been selling CNG-powered Civics, the engine of which it claims is the cleanest-burning on the planet, in the US since 1998.

But sales have been confined to business fleets - the New York Department of Transporation has 400 - that travel short distances and have designated filling stations.

Not anymore. "What's kept natural-gas vehicles from home driveways is an easy, reliable way to refill - and we've got that now," says Stephen Ellis, head of Honda alternative vehicles in the US.

The Japanese carmaker has joined Canadian's alternative fuels specialist FuelMaker Corporation to deliver a car-refuelling appliance that takes advantage of natural gas supplied to homes.

Called Phill, it's a $2800 wall-mounted pump of sorts which compresses natural gas to the high pressure needed to run the Civic. It can be installed inside or outside.

It takes about eight hours to fill the Civic's tank, and good for about 200km. Commercial stations take a matter of minutes.

Honda sees the market as mostly second family vehicles and commuter cars being fuelled overnight. Ellis expects sales to follow the pattern of hybrid Civics.

"We know we can eventually sell tens of thousands a year but it wouldn't be possible without a home refuelling option."

The popularity of alternative fuels such as CNG is gaining momentum in the US as more states enact legislation to permit such vehicles to use carpool lanes even if there's only one person in the car.

Also, vehicles using natural gas are cleaner-burning and produce less pollutants than those using petrol or diesel. They are cheaper to run, too - about 70 to 80 per cent less than petrol.

CNG prices are also increasing, although they are not as volatile as those of petrol.

Honda believes natural gas is a practical alternative to petrol for US consumers. It sees it as a critical bridge to consumers accepting the hydrogen-powered vehicles it expects to sell in large numbers by 2015.

By putting Phills in garages, Honda hopes consumers will accept the idea of a hydrogen fuel-cell generator in their garage later.

"The biggest obstacle to broader acceptance of natural gas vehicles is the limited availability of refuelling stations," said Tom Elliott, executive vice-president of American Honda.

"This alliance with FuelMaker is great for Honda because it will give our customers a personalised solution to refuelling.

"Our research indicates people like the convenience of filling up at home. Plus, natural gas offers many benefits as an alternative to gasoline and is an abundant domestic resource that strengthens America's energy independence."

Honda and Fuelmaker are also looking at Europe, particularly Northern Italy and Germany where there is a network of GNG stations. Use of CNG is also growing France.

Princeton University in the US uses the Fuelmaker system to run its CNG-powered shuttle buses on campus.