![]() Forget to plug in one night when your arms were full of bags? Both Chevys will take half a day to top off when you realize you left them unfueled next morning (happily, gasoline backup is always ready). My Volt tester took a CNG-like 13 hours to recharge on a standard 110-volt outlet at a cost of about a buck. With residential rates a mere 8 cents per kilowatt hour (just 3.7 kWh at night), the Volt has the CNG beat on cost, if not convenience. At a half-gallon an hour, she’ll take 16 hours to feed. After that heavy lift, refilling the Impala’s 7.8-gallon natural gas tank is a bargain at about 92 cents a gallon from home - if you’re patient. The convenience of a garage-installed natural gas station - called The Phill by BRC Fuelmaker - would set me back $5,500. Thanks to America’s fracking boom, the cost of natural gas plummeted in recent years, leading to GM’s ambitious plans for the Impala - only the second compressed natural gas vehicle on the market after Honda’s Civic.īut fracking also benefited the oil market, meaning my CNG Impala cost $2.64 to refill down by the “FILTHY FRESH” in November when gas prices were just $1.89 at my local BP station (now $1.59). Their carbon dioxide emissions are 75 percent of gasoline-powered equivalents. Just as utilities seeking to affordably reduce their carbon footprint have turned to natural gas, so have automakers looked at compressed natural gas as an alternative.
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