55 STATIONS STATEWIDE SELL ALTERNATIVE FUEL. NATURAL GAS RUNNING AGENCY'S RENTAL CARS
DON HOPEY, POST-GAZETTE STAFF WRITER
04/19/2001
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
If an ultra-low-emissions natural gas-powered car leaves the Philadelphia
International Airport for a 332-mile trip to the Greater Pittsburgh
International Airport, how long does it take?
a) 6 hours, 15 minutes
b) two days
c) three years
The answer is all of the above, as Jim Demb, director of external marketing for EV Rental Cars, is demonstrating by driving a new Honda Civic powered by compressed natural gas on a "Clean Across Pennsylvania" road trip.
Demb could make the drive in the same six-hour-plus time it would take someone driving a conventional gasoline-powered vehicle (answer a), but he's stopping in Harrisburg overnight and holding a press conference this morning before continuing on to Pittsburgh this afternoon (answer b).
And that two-day trip has been three years in the making (answer c) for his company, EV Rental, which operates eight rental locations in partnership with Budget Rental Car in California and Arizona.
Demb left Philadelphia yesterday morning after a ceremony to mark the opening of EV Rental, a 3-year-old California company, at the Budget Rental Car desk at that airport.
"It's easy now to drive across the state in an alternative fuel car, and that's precisely why I'm making this trip," Demb said yesterday morning during a refueling stop off the King of Prussia exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. "We want to demonstrate that there's a network of natural gas refueling stations, so use of these vehicles presents no problem."
The environmentally friendly rental car company, which uses only alternative fueled vehicles -- either compressed natural gas (CNG) cars or hybrids powered by a combination of electricity and gasoline - - opened its ninth location five weeks ago at Pittsburgh International Airport. Philadelphia is the 10th.
"We've been trying to get our alternative fuel vehicle rentals into Pittsburgh and Philadelphia for a long time, almost since the company started, but we needed to make sure there were enough refueling stations to make such rentals convenient to customers," Demb said.
The state now has 55 filling stations offering compressed natural gas, including one that opened in October at Pittsburgh International Airport, where Demb and his rental car will be the centerpiece of another news conference tomorrow morning before he heads back to Philadelphia.
The refueling station was partially funded by a $105,000 grant from the state's Alternative Fuel Vehicle Program.
The Budget EV Rental Car counter at the airport has 10 Honda Civics that use compressed natural gas, and like other EV rental locations, eight or nine of them are rented at any one time.
"We're actually quite pleased with the way these cars have been accepted," Demb said. "They're new, they're innovative and they're environmental for people who feel it's important to do something to help clean the air."
Since EV Rental began operation in California in 1998, it has had 13,000 customers, who have driven 2.5 million miles in the natural- gas powered cars, eliminating a total of 10 tons of air pollution.
"Those vehicles are being rented every day in Pittsburgh, and we're doing our best to increase awareness of these alternative fuel vehicles," said Ira Bradford, a marketing consultant for Pittsburgh Region Clean Cities.
In addition to backing construction of the natural gas refueling center and promoting conversion of airport shuttle fleets to natural gas, the Clean Cities group has applied for a $1.6 million federal grant to convert 48 airport maintenance and runway operations trucks to natural gas use.
"The natural gas vehicles reduce particulate emissions to almost zero and
that's a big plus, especially around airports where jets just spew those particulates out," Bradford said.
Alternative fuel vehicles do cost a little more -- a Honda Civic CNG is about $4,000 more expensive than a gasoline-powered Honda Civic -- but fuel costs are less.
Natural gas at the refueling stations in Allegheny County costs $1.08 a gallon. Demb paid 89.9 cents a gallon yesterday in King of Prussia.
EV Rental estimates its customers have saved more than $50,000 in fuelcosts.
"The popular perception is that there's no alternatives to gasoline or
diesel fuel," Bradford said, "but with gasoline prices going up, people need to know that there are alternatives. They have a choice."
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