Fuelled by innovation

General Motors will begin selling a mid-sized sedan next summer that can be powered by either petrol or compressed natural gas.

The 2015 Chevrolet Impala, GM’s first car powered by natural gas, will feature a powertrain that switches from compressed natural gas to petrol seamlessly and has a total driving range of up to 500 miles.

 The car, which will have one fuel tank for compressed natural gas and a second one for petrol, will be sold to both retail and fleet customers.

Natural gas is a cleaner-burning, less costly fuel than gasoline, and vehicles powered by compressed natural gas typically emit 20 per cent less greenhouse gases than petrol-powered cars.

New techniques unlocking vast reserves of natural gas from shale have produced a boom in supplies and driven down prices, increasing interest in the fuel.

The numbers of CNG vehicles remain small. According to the industry group Natural Gas Vehicles for America, about 130,000 to 135,000 natural gas vehicles operate in the US and more than 16 million globally, most of them commercial and fleet vehicles such as buses and garbage trucks.

GM previously said that next year it would begin selling bi-fuel versions of its heavy-duty Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pick-up trucks and natural gas versions of its Chevy Express and GMC Savana passenger vans.

Honda sells a CNG-powered Civic. Ford prepares its trucks and vans so that specialty companies can convert them to run on compressed natural gas, including its top-selling F-Series pickup truck, starting next month.

The bi-fuel Impala is meant to address range anxiety associated with vehicles that operate on natural gas only, much like GM’s Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid car was designed to do for electric cars. It will carry a factory warranty on the powertrain and fuel system.

GM did not disclose how much the bi-fuel Impala will cost, but regular versions start at about $27,700 (BD10,444).

“Natural gas powertrains are one of the areas where we have increased investment because we believe the technology can satisfy the ‘green’ needs of both the environment and the stockholders,”  Dan Akerson, US automaker’s chief executive said in a speech delivered at an energy summit in Washington.

Citing the lack of CNG gas stations, Mr Akerson said the volumes for the bi-fuel Impala will initially be small with most sales to commercial and government fleets. He said selling 750 to 1,000 of the cars in the first model year would be ‘a home run’.

In March, he also said that natural gas as a motor fuel represents a ‘huge and largely untapped opportunity for commercial fleets and long-haul truckers’.