Honda to sell Civic Natural Gas Across U.S.

Honda will sell the natural-gas-powered Civic GX nationwide in the United States starting this fall when a new 2012 model is released.

The Honda Civic GX has been offered to fleet customers nationwide since the 1998 model year. Since 2005 it has also been marketed to retail customers starting in California, and then later in New York, Utah and Oklahoma.

The 2011 Honda Civic GX was named the top green car in the USA by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEE), beating out the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Prius.

The Honda Civic Natural Gas has an estimated city/highway/combined fuel economy rating of 27/38/31 mpg (gasoline-gallon equivalent). Compared to the 2011 model, city fuel economy improves by 12.5 percent, and highway fuel economy is up by 5.5 percent.

Natural-gas-propelled cars are seen by some as even greener than all-electric vehicles, because EVs charge their batteries using electricity often generated by fossil-fuel-fired power plants.

[source: NIkkei]