5. Why Natural Gas and Electricity?

Compressed natural gas as a vehicle fuel is the same clean burning, safe, natural gas that is used to cook food and heat homes. CNG is a clean burning alternative fuel that reduces pollution of the air we breathe and also reduces our City's reliance on foreign petroleum imports, since natural gas has abundant domestic reserves.

Natural gas vehicles (NGVs) produce far less carbon monoxide, reactive hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen and particulates, all of which contribute to air pollution and smog, resulting in a cleaner, healthier environment. Compared to their gasoline vehicle counterparts, NGVs also have less CO₂ emissions, a major contributor to global warming.

Electricity is really the cleanest commercially available transportation fuel, especially in California where power plants have to meet stringent air pollution standards. California power plants all run on natural gas which, as discussed above is far cleaner than oil or gasoline. In addition, controlling pollution at the source--the power plant --is far easier than controlling the pollution from millions of vehicle tailpipes.

With last winter's energy crisis, questions were raised about the wisdom of using the State's precious electricity to charge EVs. In fact, the California Air Resources Board found that 95 percent of EV drivers charge at home at night when the demand for electricity is lowest. And, even if 10,000 more EVs were added to California's roads each year, they would represent less than 0.06 percent (or less than 1/10 of 1 percent) of the California's total power demand. Good!