CNG Cars a Hit in Utah

Technocrat

CNG Cars a Hit in Utah

zogger

Sat Aug 30 20:12:00 -0700 2008

Science.

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Compressed natural gas is pretty cheap in Utah, so cheap it has sparked a mini boom in cars designed to use that fuel, along with a growing retrofit market.

Utahans are hunting the Internet and traveling the country to pick up used natural gas cars at auctions. They are spending thousands of dollars to transform their trucks and sport utility vehicles to run on compressed gas. Some fueling stations that sell it to the public are so busy they frequently run low on pressure, forcing drivers to return before dawn when demand is down. ed.z.: If T-bone wants his Pickens plan to work, he should drop a billion on a factory that makes a lot cheaper conversion kit for some popular model cars, heck, he could do it at cost as a loss leader to jump start his big project.

When Atlanta Gaslight was offering a CNG home fueling plan, I looked into it (IIRC around 1996 or so), but I thought 3500 bucks just for the home adapter pump thing was outrageous so I passed on it, so I can't see 12,000 dollars being much of an inducement for anyone who isn't a traveling salesman and runs up 150 thousand miles a year or something, it is just way too high a price, even at that level of fuel savings.

I think the idea has some merit, especially combined with the windpower proposal, but that conversion and severe lack of a factory option that is affordable are going to be a huge sticking point. Just like electric cars with batteries.

Now it used to be propane was a cheap option, but now not so much, the price has gone up bad. The one thing propane has going for it is you can store it darn near indefinitely, and having large home tanks and home delivery is pretty common. Well, one more, it is a much cheaper conversion compared to CNG, and dual fuel now, gas or propane with a switch on the dash, is readily available. That means even with the conversion you could still drive around mostly with regular gas, and keep the propane for any "bad news" times when delivery of regular fuel is borked or sudden sticker shock from -take yer pick on geopolitical events. I think the cheaper bottom line for alternative fuels and transportation now is still biofuels, home brewed.

CNG Cars a Hit in Utah

japester

Sun Aug 31 06:24:25 -0700 2008
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$12 grand to get his car converted? That's a ridiculous figure. 10 years ago, I paid $1,500 to get my 1986 Ford Fairmont converted. Best thing I ever did - it paid itself off in two years.

Australia has some of its major car manufacturers (Ford and Holden) building LPG enabled cars at its factory, not many though.

but we also have quite a number of petrol stations pumping LPG. I feel oddly suprised that it has taken the US ten years to catch up, so the infrastructure is already there for consumers to drive LPG cars.

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zogger

Sun Aug 31 10:11:37 -0700 2008
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CNG is not LPG, different conversions, different fuel. CNG is higher priced, but ya, 12 grand is ridiculous. I just googled around, closer to 3 thousand for a CNG kit from some places.

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japester

Sun Aug 31 18:38:38 -0700 2008
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CNG? LPG?

ahhhh *nod* thank you for the clarification.

That said, however ... it seems that if you replace LPG with CNG in my above comment, it still stands true.

Ford Au. has created a commercial CNG fleet car. (This time last year).

There is the myphill .... device ... which lets you fill a CNG car at home. (no prices on the website though).

so CNG seems to be on the uptake. It will be interesting to watch it over the next few years.