October 21, 2002	Monday	Sha’aban 14,1423

LOS ANGELES: Efforts to market natural gas-powered vehicles have long been frustrated by a dearth of public refuelling stations.

Now Toronto-based FuelMaker Corp. has developed and will begin selling a home fuelling system that hooks into residential gas lines and makes it possible to fill a natural gas vehicle’s tanks daily.

Pricing for the device, called Phill, hasn’t been set, but FuelMaker says it hopes to bring it to market for less than $2,000 next year. The price should fall to $999 when volume production is achieved. That should be within two years of introduction, said FuelMaker spokeswoman Amy Chaput, but it depends on public acceptance of natural gas vehicles.

Concurrently, and not coincidentally, American Honda says it will start marketing its natural gas vehicle, the Honda Civic GX, to retail customers in all 50 states by next spring. American Honda owns 20 percent of FuelMaker.

“Home refuelling will help to increase consumer acceptance of natural gas-powered vehicles,” said Robert Bienenfeld, senior manager of product planning at American Honda and chairman of the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition board of directors. “Our research indicates people like the idea of being able to refuel their vehicles at home.”

FuelMaker says Phill can be installed in a garage and allows natural gas-powered vehicles to be refuelled from a homeowner’s existing natural gas supply line.

The system compresses gas from the residential line and pumps it into the vehicle’s tank through a special nozzle.

It will be certified as a natural gas appliance, meeting the same safety requirements as natural gas water heaters and clothes dryers, and come with a gas leak warning alarm that automatically shuts down the system in the event of a leak, Chaput said. — Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Los Angeles Times