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Propelled by low gas prices, Americans rushed to auto dealers last year and sent sales of cars and trucks to a record high.
Left in their wake was this roadkill: alternative-fuel vehicles.
Promoters of all-electric and hybrid models had hoped this finally would be the era when Americans turned over a new (Nissan) Leaf, or perhaps Toyota Prius, and rejected traditional gas-guzzlers. However, automakers’ 2015 figures released this week suggest the green-car revolution will be postponed for lack of a driving interest; Nissan reported sales of the Leaf electric car sank 43 percent last year to around 17,000, according to AP auto writer Dee-Ann Durbin. Likewise, sales of subcompact cars were subpar.
The year’s top-seller: Ford’s F-series trucks, with 780,354 hitting the road – an average of “more than one every minute,” the AP reported.
The news out of Detroit represents a mixed bag for Northeastern Pennsylvania, home to a rich deposit of natural gas that influences energy markets and industries far beyond Susquehanna and Wyoming counties. Consider these three implications of the Marcellus Shale field on our present, and possibly future, motoring habits:
• Natural gas production in Pennsylvania and other hotbeds of U.S. drilling activity has depressed oil prices, which in turn pushed down the price of gasoline. Car experts cited cheap gas as one of the chief reasons for last year’s blistering auto sales, with nearly 17.5 million cars and light trucks sold – more than in any year since 2000.
Other factors included low interest rates and a rosier employment picture, meaning more people had jobs and money to spend.
• A slowdown in the natural gas industry, and resulting layoffs as fewer new wells are drilled, caused truck sales last year in some pockets of the country to buck the national trend and decline. Drop-offs were reported in Texas, specifically the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Oklahoma, according to a report this week in the Automotive News.
Pennsylvania, however, has so far not experienced a similar sales slowdown, the article stated.
• Despite Pennsylvania’s bounty of natural gas, it remains to be seen if this state’s network of compressed natural gas stations continues to expand and ultimately can attract private car owners.
Navigant Research recently predicted only a gradual rise in the globe’s natural gas vehicle sales over the next decade, according to an article this week in Green Car Reports. It noted the nation has about 1,000 natural gas fueling stations, less than half of which are open to the public.
In 2014, area hauling companies such as KANE and shipper UPS, with a facility in Pittston Township, added CNG trucks to their fleets. Incentives from the state Department of Environmental Protection also allowed Pennsylvania American Water company and municipalities such as Duryea to embrace natural gas-powered vehicles.
But if natural gas-fueled cars are the future for masses of American motorists, the transition appears to be far, far down the road.