I work with a gentleman with family in Peru. In Peru it costs $300 to convert a car so it will run on both gasoline and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). It costs $6,000 to do the same thing here.
Our government has effectively halted all new drilling for oil here in the U.S., forcing us to purchase ever more oil from people who want to kill us. The fact that we are forced to use a single type of fuel has effectively prevented any real competition and artificially drives demand up.
The U.S. has ample supplies of natural gas (200-plus years’ worth). Requiring Detroit to at least reserve a place for a CNG tank and a CNG carburetor on each car is a no-brainer. It would give us an alternative and introduce real competition in the market.
We should also find out why it costs so much to make the conversion here in the U.S. when it costs so little in other countries.
I contacted Congressman Adam Smith about this last year, but I guess he was too busy attempting to violate the constitution with Obamacare to be bothered with actually solving problems.
Now that the government owns both GM and Chrysler (not to mention that gasoline is now over $3.50 a gallon), perhaps this would be a good time to actually do something about it.