One reason compressed natural gas vehicles aren't as big in America as they are in Europe is we get mundane sedans like the Honda GX while they get sexy roadsters like the Cevennes Turbo CNG from PGO and BRA GmbH.
The Cevennes updates the classic lines of the Porsche 356 and gives it a modern 1.6-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that cranks out 150 horsepower. Top speed is 130 mph, and the car scoots from zero to 62 mph in 6.5 seconds. No bad at all. The car carries about 48 pounds of compressed natural gas - aka methane - and has a range of 280 miles.
PGO says the Cevennes burns 4.6 kilos of CNG every 100 kilometers, which if we've done our math correctly is equivalent to 16.2 32.4 mpg. It emits 118 g/km of carbon dioxide, well below the European average of 160 g/km and not much higher than the greenest hybrids and clean-diesels currently available in Europe.
PGO will unveil the Cevennes Turbo CNG at the Geneva Auto Show and will accept orders for a limited run of cars to be sold in Germany for $70,000. The company will gauge the reaction in Geneva before deciding whether to increase production.
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According to the International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles, compressed natural gas is cleaner, cheaper and more plentiful than other fossil fuels and, in the case of biomethane, renewable. Despite those advantages, its use an alternative fuel in the United States remains limited largely to municipal fleets because there are few places to fill up.
Not so in Europe, where Switzerland is about to open its 100th CNG filling station and consumers can chose from 26 different CNG vehicles. According to Green Car Congress, Germany has 770 natural gas filling stations and Italy has more than 600.
PGO started building replicas 20 years ago. Ten years ago it started designing its Speedster II, a modern version of the 356. The Speedster made its debut at the 2000 Paris Auto Show.
UPDATE: I screwed up when figuring the Cevennes Turbo CNG's fuel economy. Rich Kolodziej, president of NGVAmerica, pointed out my error and arrived at the 32.4 mpg figure. He used the following formula, citing PGO's natural gas consumption figure of 4.6 kg/100 km: (100 km * 0.621 miles per km) / (4.6 kg * 0.417 gallons per kg) = 32.4 miles per gallon.
