How much do you know about vehicles powered by compressed natural gas? We're guessing not a whole lot - it's not an extremely popular power train variant here in the United States, but many automakers have begun to adopt it as gasoline prices continue to climb and environmental concerns grow. It's also more cost-effective - the technology to retrofit or convert fleet and public transportation vehicles into CNG-powered vehicles is readily available.

Here are a few other facts: According to the EPA, CNG produces 25-percent less carbon emissions than traditionally powered vehicles. Plus, filling up the tank is less expensive than traditional gasoline. And, did you know that Chevrolet makes CNG utility vans for fleets?

Well, they do. And companies like AT&T are taking advantage of the availability. The phone company has recently announced a $565 million invest in greening up their fleets, and they've already put 5,000 CNG vans on the road - 1,200 of which they ordered directly from Chevy. "As the economy rises and falls with fuel prices, we have a responsibility to look for smart ways to reduce our costs,"¹ says Jerome Webber, VP of Fleet Operations at AT&T.

He also says that their efforts to put more CNG vehicles on the road "is a significant statement about the ability of fleet operators to not only reduce costs, but also cut vehicle emissions. Every alternative fuel vehicle on the road brings us closer to energy independence, and that's good for our company and our country."² How good? By 2018, AT&T hopes to displace the use of more than 49-million gallons of gasoline, or the equivalent of removing 36,000 passenger cars from the road for one year. They're well on their way, too - they've already cut their carbon emissions by 211,000 metric tons.

The vans ordered by AT&T are Chevrolet Express 2500 and 3500 cargo vans equipped with gaseous fuel systems, Vortec 6.0L V8 engines, and Chevy's three-year/36,000-mile new vehicle warranty.

We hope to see more orders like this in the future, and so does Chevrolet. "There are millions of fleet vehicles on the road today," says Brian Small, General Manager, GM Fleet and Commercial Operations. "We want to be a critical part of this sustainable revolution, helping make those conversions as easy as possible."³

You can't get a CNG-powered passenger vehicle at Connell Chevrolet (at least, not yet anyway). But you will find some very impressive and fuel-efficient new vehicles in our showroom, including the 40-mpg 2012 Cruze and the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt. Stop in and chat with a member of our team about all of the green options now available from Chevy - we're conveniently located at 2828 Harbor Blvd Costa Mesa, CA 92626 - and we're always happy to talk specs and arrange test drives.

Sources:
-^1,2http://www.ngvglobal.com/att-deploys-3000th-cng-fleet-vehicle-0826
-³http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/chevrolet/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2012/Jan/0130_cng