Solo in the Carpool Lane but Stuck at the Pump

Troy Mitchell spent three months looking for his dream car. He researched and rented several clean-air vehicles before he settled on a 2000 Ford Crown Victoria, a big, comfortable car that runs on clean-burning natural gas.

Ah, a roomy sedan with an environmental conscience, he thought.

The perks have been great. Compressed natural gas, or CNG for short, is about 30% cheaper than gasoline. And, thanks to a state law that allows solo drivers in clean-air vehicles to use the carpool lanes, Mitchell cruises past Southern California’s notorious freeway congestion.

But his gas guzzler has one major drawback: A few days after he bought it, Mitchell was standing at a CNG filling station, begging other motorists to buy him gas to fill up his tank.

For all the environmental benefits compressed natural gas offers, it is still not readily available to private citizens like Mitchell. The vast majority of the 20,000 CNG vehicles on the road in California belong to fleets -- taxis, trash trucks, shuttle vans -- used by government agencies and private companies that operate their own on-site filling stations.

Experts estimate that only about 200 private individuals in the state own CNG cars.

Mitchell, an inventor from Granada Hills, is paying a price for being a member of such a tiny minority.

Because so few private citizens own natural-gas cars, only about half of the 220 CNG filling stations in the state are open to the general public.

Of those, about half require a gas credit card approved by the gas company that owns the station.

In Southern California, that amounts to only about 18 CNG stations that serve the public and accept major credit cards.

In other words, out-of-town trips require lots of planning to ensure that a station is always within a tank-full drive.

Part of the reason CNG stations are rare is that they require more costly technology than regular gas stations.

Mitchell learned all of this the hard way when he first tried to fill up at a CNG station in the San Fernando Valley without a gas credit card.

The pump would not take cash or a major credit card and there was no attendant to offer help.

Luckily for Mitchell, he found another motorist with a gas card willing to take cash to fill up Mitchell’s tank.

“The biggest downside,” he said, “is definitely getting gas.”

But natural gas vendors promise change is coming soon.

The sales of CNG cars to the general public are expected to grow in the next few years.

Gas vendors like Southern California Gas Co. and ENRG Corp. are responding with plans to open more stations in the near future and to convert most of the existing stations to accept major credit cards.

“Slowly but surely, the infrastructure is being built out,” said Andrew Littlefair, CEO of ENRG, a firm based in Seal Beach that operates 90 CNG stations in the state.

Southern California Gas Co. promises to convert all of its CNG stations to accept major credit cards by the end of next year.

One reason sales of CNG cars are expected to rise is that Honda Motor Co. announced recently that it will market its new natural-gas-powered Civic GX to the general public next year. The sleek, 100-horsepower Civic GX is touted as having the cleanest-burning internal combustion engine in the world.

Honda is also playing a role in making sure GX owners will have places to fill up. Honda owns a 20% stake in FuelMaker Corp., a Toronto-based firm that plans to begin next year to sell a home-based fueling appliance that can fill up a CNG car via a home’s natural gas line.

Mitchell does not consider himself a militant environmentalist. He simply can’t stand freeway congestion and insisted on having a car that could cut his commute time.

By driving in the carpool lane, Mitchell has cut his daily commute from Granada Hills to his job in Santa Monica and back by about an hour.

He considered buying an electric car but was put off by the long battery-recharging period. The increasingly popular hybrid cars, which run on electricity and gasoline, don’t need the long recharging but they don’t meet the emissions standards to qualify for the carpool-lane exemption.

There are other perks to owning a CNG car, like a state tax credit of as much as $3,000.

In Los Angeles, Santa Monica and other environmentally minded cities, owners of CNG cars and electric vehicles can park without feeding the city parking meters.

Unfortunately, most parking enforcement officers don’t know about the law.

Mitchell said he has received dozens of parking tickets for failing to feed the meter.

He gets the tickets dismissed by sending a copy of his clean-air vehicle certificate to the traffic court.

“So it costs me 37 cents for a stamp to dismiss a ticket that I could have avoided by feeding the meter with 25 cents,” he said, laughing.

To roll in the carpool lanes, owners of clean-air vehicles must apply for a decal from the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is displayed on the bumper.

But that law is not common knowledge either, even among the California Highway Patrol.

Mitchell said he was stopped recently by a CHP officer who was completely in the dark about the carpool-lane exemption for clean-air vehicles.

“He said, ‘You must know why I pulled you over, right?’ and I said, ‘No, I don’t,’ ” Mitchell said.

Most motorists are also ignorant of the law.

That would explain the angry glares, rude gestures and curses Mitchell gets from other drivers nearly every time he uses the carpool lanes alone.

That’s why he came up with the idea for the cheesy, inflatable sex doll.

She sits in the passenger seat next to him, a surprised plastic expression on her face.

He said he still gets stares but they are mostly looks of puzzlement, not anger.

Despite the drawbacks, Mitchell has no regrets about buying a CNG car. But he worries that if natural gas-powered cars become too popular, lawmakers will eliminate the exemption to drive in the carpool lanes.

“I would recommend it to others,” he said. “But I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone because I don’t want to lose my diamond lane privileges.”

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If you have a gripe, question or story idea about driving in Southern California, send an e-mail to behindthewheel@latimes.com.