Natural Gas Automobiles

[daepp]

How does natural gas compare to gasoline in automobiles? I have never driven one.

And since most of us have this gas delivered to our homes very reliably, and it is in large supply, why not establish a method of fueling our own cars at home?

Just a thought.

[kach22i]

I think natural gas is well matched to fuel cells for electric power.

We deal with the Russians or the Arabs in either picture.

http://www.bgr.bund.de/nn_335996/EN/Themen/Energie/Bilder/Ene__Erdgas__reserven2006__g__en.html


http://p2o2.blogspot.com/2008_07_05_archive.html

[myamoto1]

never thought of NG, but looked into converting my old 4Runner to a LPG/Petrol "hybrid". the LPG fosters a cleaner and more complete burn in the combustion chamber. There was a company out of NJ??? that did conversions for fleet vehicles and also sold a scaled down version for the "average consumer" vehicle. I think the system ran about $600 - $800, not including install.

[legion]

Natural gas has significantly less energy per unit than gasoline. This means that after retrofitting your car to run on natural gas, you have a fraction of the range.

[Brian 162]

I had a 5 ton truck that was duel fuel (natural gas/gasoline). In the city running on natural gas there was not to much of a difference. On the highway on natural gas there was a big drop in power.
One thing to keep in mind. The liquified natural gas tanks fill to 3000 psi.
There used to be home fill stations so you could re-fuel your vehicle.You would hook up the fill hose at night and the tanks would fill overnight.

[s_wilwerding]

One thing nobody seems to be mentioning is that if a significant number of people start using NG in their cars, the price of NG will skyrocket (just like how ethanol has caused corn prices to skyrocket).

Then, instead of paying $300 a month in the winter to heat my house, it will be more like $1,000 a month.

[p911dad]

I have been driving the Honda Civic natural gas model for at least 6 years. We have many of them in our fleet to reduce our fleet emissions level(we have many diesel trucks). I can report there is no difference in the drivability between the gasoline and NG versions. The NG model has less range(maybe 250 miles max max) and has a slightly difficult refueling process(more steps than gasoline). The mechanics report the oil looks like new after 3000 miles. The tank holds 6 gallons of 3600# NG. The car has plenty of power, no hesitation, nothing different. The tank takes up most of the trunk, almost no luggage space. We own our own refueling stations, and they are mucho expensive and require steady maintenance. Basically a series of pumps and large, high pressure tanks. You pull the gas out of the pipe and pressurize it and store it in the large tanks for later use to refill the cars. A good refill takes about 3 minutes.

[Shawn 357]

If you convert a car from gas to NG without doing anything to the compression it will be down on power.

[johndglynn]

LPG is quite common in the UK, as you'd expect with petrol at $9 a gallon. There is a small loss of power on gas, but the car burns cleaner and the fuel costs less than half the price of petrol. Lots of SUVs and other big stuff here run on LPG with sometimes underfloor tanks.

I have regular use of a Suburban and an S500 Benz, both running gas. Both fly along, no problem.

[daepp]

Does any part of the world use home refueling?

[Scooter]

My Dad used to drag race a '56 Chevy on natural gas back in the late 60's - early 70's in southern California. His car was called the Natural Gasser. He converted cars to natural gas and propane for low emissions before it was popular.

[Brian 162]

Originally Posted by daepp

Does any part of the world use home refueling?

They used to have home re-fuelling up here. I'm not sure if it's still available.
Natural gas/propane vehicles haven't been promoted that much until the price of crude sky rocketed this past summer.

[therotman]

My wife drives a Honda Civic with NG for work sometimes- it takes much longer to fill up and doesn't have a very long driving range before it needs more gas.


I'm with s_wilwerding- it sounds like another ethanol-type disaster. Some cars running NG is a good idea, having a major switch from gasoline to NG would be a disaster.

[Steve Carlton]

The CNG Honda Civics run on the same gas you use at home in your appliances and you can fill them at home.

[SteveinTO]

In the Honda deal I believe you lease the pump mechanism to bring your 5 lbs of pressure from your line at home up to the pressure required by the tank in the car. I'm told the cost per mile is considerably less than gas, even at $2.00/gallon.

[Porsche_monkey]

All the arena's here, and lots of factories have 'pumps' to refill Zamboni's and forklifts. Home kits are still availble, but rare.

The issue with NG is liquification. You can't get high enough pressures in on-board storage tanks to liquify it, so the amount of energy on-board is compromised.

Far better to go propane (which will liquify at lower pressure) and can be bought at some gas stations. That's why taxi's and limo's are propane.

[old man neri]

A work truck I once drove had it. I made the mistake one winter night of shutting it off when it was running on NG. Took for ever to start it the next morning.