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"Just a thought, since we do have so much natural gas, why hasn’t someone built a car that will run on it and set up filling stations for them?"

I thought the same thing. I checked out the cost of conversion kits and I found prices around 4-5K a car which seemed rather high.

Thanks to all of you for the responses to my query about Natural Gas conversions on cars. FR has the smartest people in the world, at least IMO, for members.

$4-5K per car is a matter of deleting a goodly part of the options list. Some sound systems come to almost that much, and strictly speaking, a hand-held transistor radio provides a similar basic function.

But then, I come from an era when an AM radio was an extra-cost option, and air conditioning was unheard of.

It all comes down to what one considers to be vital to continued existence. Getting from Point A to Point B at a less expensive per-mile cost is much more important than the most recent playlist as reported by MTV.

Or even tweeting from the convenience of the driver’s seat.

I checked out the cost of conversion kits and I found prices around 4-5K a car which seemed rather high.

I did a little research into conversions for NG and LPG.

The parts themselves cost far less. There's no technical reason why a universal conversion setupt couldn't be made economically.

Except that the EPA requires that it put it's imprimatur on every system - they require the systems to be installed, tested, and approved for a single vehicle with a single engine. Once that approval is obtained, it is not transferrable to the same vehicle with a different engine or a different vehicle with the same engine, and forget a completely different vehicle.

The costs of getting EPA approval are pretty large, and they have to be spread across the currently small markets for conversions. Since the only conversions with a prayer of being profitable are those for vehicles with huge customer bases, the EPA approved conversions are scarce and expensive.

Our government at work.