Reasons to Buy an Alternative Fuel Vehicle

There are some good reasons to buying a car that uses an alternative fuel source. One good reason is not relying on foreign countries for our fuel source. Another is less pollution.

Some of the alternative fuel sources for vehicles include the electric/gasoline called hybrid, fuel cell, and Natural gas. Honda, Ford and Toyota all have hybrid vehicles; they are priced in the mid $20,000 to over $30,000 range. They claim they get great gas mileage. The best one for gas mileage is the Toyota Prius with 52 miles per gallon. The car uses the electric part of the engine at a slower speed. When driving on a freeway or in a city it uses both gas and electric plus recharges the battery while driving (Energy Quest, Hybrid Vehicles).

The next type of alternative fuel source would be 'fuel cells.' Fuel cell vehicles will have an electric motor. What happens is the fuel cells "turn hydrogen and oxygen into electricity" and "that powers an electric motor." The fuel cells use oxygen that is in the air and combined it with hydrogen, combined "give off energy and water." No burning is involved. More work is needed to make fuel cell vehicles run more efficiently. This type of vehicle is only in the development stage, and the only ones made are being used for testing. Ford has a demonstration car that they call 'P2000 Sedan.' DaimlerChrysler also has a demonstration vehicle they named it 'NECAR 4' (Energy Quest, Fuel Cell Vehicles).

Another alternative fuel source is compressed natural gas that is being use for vehicles. Natural gas is made from petroleum. This would still make us dependant on fuel because gasoline and diesel are made from petroleum. There are a few cars available that use the compressed natural gas. A couple of the vehicles are the Honda Civic CGX and the Ford Crown Victoria (Energy Quest, Compressed Natural Gas).

Almost all of the natural gas used in the United States is domestic or from another North American source. Natural gas is produced at a low cost, is "cleaner burning than gasoline or diesel fuel." Natural gas for vehicles is only available in California (California Energy Commission, Compressed Natural Gas as a Transportation Fuel).

I would consider getting possibly a hybrid or a natural gas vehicle in the future. I would like to know more about how long the engines last compared to the gasoline ones. If there were incentives today that made it more affordable to purchase a hybrid vehicle I would purchase one. Especially with the high gas mileage they get. For me to be interested in buying a natural gas vehicle there needs to be gas stations all over the United States that sell the compressed natural gas.

There are a couple of reasons that more of these alternative fuel vehicles are not being used today. One major reason for the compressed natural gas is that the only state you can get fuel for it is in California. As I stated already, gas stations all over the United States needs to offer compressed natural gas (California Energy Commission, Compressed Natural Gas as a Transportation Fuel). If this was possible I believe there would be more of them in circulation today. Another reason there are not more of them in use is I feel more publicity needs to be done on the hybrid vehicles. Make them more attractive to the younger generation, so that when parents are looking to get their teenager a vehicle, they would get them an environmental friendly one. With the high price of gasoline the best thing an automaker could do is to advertising how many miles per gallon a hybrid vehicle gets. People are always looking for ways to save money, and if it protects the environment that is great too. The price of the vehicles seems to be a big turn off. People are looking for incentives and lower prices; they don't want to have to pay more just because it has a different engine. It would be nice if people would be more concerned about the environment than their wallet. This is not the case though.

References:
Energy Quest, "Fuel Cell Vehicles - the ZEVs of the Future?" Retrieved June 6, 2007
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/transportation/fuelcells.html

Energy Quest, "Compressed Natural Gas -natural gas under high pressure," Retrieved June 6, 2007
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/transportation/CNG.html

Energy Quest, "Hybrid Vehicles," Retrieved June 6, 2007
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/transportation/hybrid.html

California Energy Commission, "Compressed Natural Gas as a Transportation Fuel," Retrieved June 5, 2007
http://www.energy.ca.gov/afvs/vehicle_fact_sheets/cng.html