GM to sell bifuel Chevrolet and GMC trucks

While gasoline hovers at about four bucks a gallon, natural gas is priced at the equivalent of $1.89 per gallon. Chevrolet and GMC are hoping to take advantage of that disparity by offering bi-fuel heavy-duty pickups for fleet and retail customers beginning on April 19, the day before Earth Day. The bi-fuel option will cost buyers $11,000, on top of the price of the pickups.

The pickups will use General Motors' 6.0-liter Vortec V8 engines that can seamlessly transition between gasoline and compressed natural gas (CNG). A single CNG tank sits in the bed, leaving room for payload. GM says the trucks can make it 650 miles on one tank of each fuel.

The HD pickups will be available in several configurations, including two- and four-wheel drive and long and short box, but all will come equipped with an extended cab. They will be covered by GM's three-year, 36,000-mile new-vehicle limited warranty and five-year, 100,000-mile limited powertrain warranty.

To make up that $11,000 premium, you'd have to drive about 80,000 miles on natural gas. At 15 mpg, traveling 80,000 miles would use about $21,300 of gasoline. Covering the same distance using CNG would cost just $10,080, or a difference of $11,220.

Now, there's no reason that a new pickup can't last that long. In fact, that kind of durability is probably expected. But, finding a CNG station to fill up at could be inconvenient if not difficult in some locales.

Math aside, there are other positives and negatives to running a vehicle on compressed natural gas. If you have a station locally and want to do your part for the environment, CNG could be the way to go. But as we've seen in the past, many consumers are likely to do only what's required and not much more. Keeping the CNG tank full in addition to the standard fuel tank might just be a little too much to ask.

By Jake Lingeman