Would you buy a NG powered truck?

[two_bit_score]

DETROIT More natural gas-powered vehicles will hit the market soon, as rising gasoline prices, booming natural gas production and proposed tax credits make them a more attractive option. But theyæ±*e a long way from being a common sight in U.S. driveways.

Chrysler will sell a Ram 2500 Heavy Duty pickup that runs on compressed natural gas starting in July. The truck has both a gasoline tank and a natural gas storage tank, and its engine shifts seamlessly between the two power sources. The truck can run for 255 miles on natural gas and another 367 miles using gasoline.

Chrysler will have competition. Late this year, General Motors Co. will sell natural-gas versions of two pickups the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 2500 HD. The GM trucks will run on gasoline and natural gas for 650 miles. Ford Motor Co. has offered natural-gas ready pickups and vans since 2009.

Natural gas is appealing for a lot of reasons. It comes from domestic sources, for those concerned about importing oil. It produces 30 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional gasoline or diesel. And it costs less than gasoline. Natural gas prices have dropped 18 percent so far this year, while regular gas prices are up 13 percent.

But U.S. buyers have been slow to adopt natural-gas vehicles, which make up less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the vehicles on American roads. Even the newest trucks aren稚 intended for average buyers. Theyæ±*e work trucks, capable of plowing snow and towing three tons or more. Chrysler will only sell its natural-gas Ram to fleet customers like local governments, utilities and construction companies. GM anticipates that 90 percent of its sales will be to fleets.


Fuel Fix More natural gas vehicles hitting the market



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[Diamondpilot]

I dont think so. My fathers company had a fleet of the Ford ones and it was so expensive as a option it just does not make sense. They bought them because of grant/tax credit.

End the end it will be another Volt!

Chris

 

[Monster5601]

It is the same old song and dance.

Until there is an infrastructure for refueling, the number of vehicles sold will not be enough to lower production cost so the vehicle is cost competitive with current vehicles regardless of the propulsion technology.

I think CNG is the way to go. Most American homes have natural gas so you could refuel at home since the technology to compress is not a big deal.

CNG is not heavy like gas or diesel reducing the vehicle's weight and increasing mileage. CNG is abundant in north America. Vehicles will not need alternative power trains or batteries.

As the price of gasoline creeps up, may be, just may be, this country will start making a serious move toward energy independence.

 

[Rancher Ed]

I wouldn't, at least not in the near future. Perhaps in 5 or 10 years, after they are more common, and there are places to refuel, I would consider it.

It is the same old song and dance.

Until there is an infrastructure for refueling, the number of vehicles sold will not be enough to lower production cost so the vehicle is cost competitive with current vehicles regardless of the propulsion technology.

I think CNG is the way to go. Most American homes have natural gas so you could refuel at home since the technology to compress is not a big deal.

CNG is not heavy like gas or diesel reducing the vehicle's weight and increasing mileage. CNG is abundant in north America. Vehicles will not need alternative power trains or batteries.

As the price of gasoline creeps up, may be, just may be, this country will start making a serious move toward energy independence.

I would disagree with you on most American homes having natural gas. In the city most of them might, I don't know, but a lot of rural and small towns are electric only, or they will have a propane tank that gets filled as needed. Because we are talking about trucks here, the homes that do have natural gas are the ones least likely to need/have a truck to begin with, so I don't think the idea is going to do well, at least for a few more years yet.

Also, while CNG isn't heavy, it is under pressure and the tanks needed for it weigh more than a diesel or gas tank, so I think the weight ends up being a wash. I'm not sure about this though, so I could be wrong.

Ed

 

[powerpace]

Natural gas vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sometimes you have to Wiki.

Looks like the U.S. is lagging behind Third World Countrys again when it come to finding alternatives. Pakistan, India. Brazil, Argentina, many European countys and Pacific Rim countrys have millions of LPG powered vehicles. Buses, trucks and cars.

I don't know how prevalent it is now but California farmers used many Butane powered tractors and crawler tractors.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-05-08-natural-gas-usat_N.htm This was in 2007.
•Ready to go. Other major automakers sell natural-gas-powered cars in Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere, just not in the USA. General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner mentioned natural gas at a Switzerland auto show in March as one of the alternative fuels the automaker has intensified efforts to develop for foreign markets.

 

[rambler]

I believe there are 2 different setups for natural gas fueling, compressed and liquified, and they are not compatable.

It's a good start, some fleet businesses can work through the issues and settle on one sandard type.

Only after that, will it rogress out to average users, likely will take a lot of govt money to get from now to then.

By then, will natural gas still be cheap? It's hard to chase after these short term roller-coaster prices, if we would drop gasoline fuels and go to natural gas fuels, what does that do to the supply and price of each right there?

As well, there is no 'float' of natural gas supplies. For te most part it comes in a pipeline and if the pipeline is disrupted or empty, you imeadiatly lose any fuel supply. With gasoline, there is the built in reserve of whatever is in the supplier's tanks.

I get several 100 gfallons of gas and diesel delivered to my farm, use it over a several month time period. There are no pipelines around me or to my farm; so I would be pretty slow to convert from what I'm doing to something that needs a pipe and constant flow to power my farm....

Here in town and all over southern MN, those grain coops that have natural gas powered corn driers run into big problems when the corn drying season overlaps a cold spell and the home heating season. When the big driers kick on, it blows out some house furnaces - the supply & the demand do not match with the current pipeline infrastructure.

Adding a lot of road fuel demand to the current pipeline infrastructure will mean a _lot_ of new pipelines needed all across the country, and well capacity to supply them.

Nothing that's can't be solved; but certainly going to be a bumpy and long ride to get enough natural gas vehicles on the road to make a difference.

Didn't know they could easily do a ng/gasoline setup like the Dodge 2500 mentioned; like any hybred setup, it means you are carrying 2 fuel setups around, making it less efficient of a vehicle, lowering payload, etc. Interesting tho.

In my location and infrastructure and the difference in tanks of gasoline/diesel vs the pipeline of natural gas with poor storage of natural gas, I would worry a great deal about the availability of ng to me - it's easy to control the supply of gasoline/diesel with a few tanks. Natural gas depends on more coming down the pipe, or it's done & over I get none right now. In short, natural gas has always struck me as a very fragile supply of fuel, can run out in 10 minutes, while I can physically own a 3 month supply of gas/diesel. In farming, I can't afford to run out.....

--->Paul

 

[Monster5601]

I would disagree with you on most American homes having natural gas.

I love Google

"62 million homes in the U.S are heated using natural gas. As of 2009 this number represented about 56 percent of households in the United States."

NaturalGas.org

If I could buy a car, or a half ton pickup that ran on CNG I'd be signing papers tonight.

 

[Wnc3]

I love Google

"62 million homes in the U.S are heated using natural gas. As of 2009 this number represented about 56 percent of households in the United States."

NaturalGas.org

If I could buy a car, or a half ton pickup that ran on CNG I'd be signing papers tonight.

I think Honda has a car factory ready....

 

[brokenknee]

Nope, I would never buy one. I had to use one about 15 years ago that was furnished by my employer. It was hard to start when cold and there was a loss of power. I believe the company that did the retro said it was 10%. My unscientific believe it was closer to 20%. Have to be very careful when fueling, more than one person ended up with burns from the LPG.

Then there is the safety aspect. We finally got rid of them when one of them went up in flames. Made quit a show, flames thirty to forty feet in the air. The "official" cause turned out to be a supply line leak that was ignited by the hot exhaust. I wish I had a video of it.

Forgot, the darn tank took up about a third of the truck bed. There is also the loss of fuel economy. If you get say 16 mpg on gas, you may get 12 mpg on propane. As already stated I would never buy one. Not sure I would even drive one if it was given to me.

With all that said, it may be possible they have addressed these issues. It is definitely one thing I would check out.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I have a propane F700 and my brother has one with a 2k water tank. I wished I knew more about them fuel wise. My neighbor is a forklift mechanic but the propane system on this truck is different from what he worked on. I like it as a fuel in the truck its geared to handle the fuel and pretty efficient. When gas went up after Katrina I drove it many trips to town and all around as it was actually cheaper in the summer to drive.


THat company truck fire was pretty amazing in fact that the supply pressure on them is around 285 psi. My neighbor had a customer have a regulator screw up and put the full pressure out of the carb. It shot fire 25 feet through the top of the cab.

Id like to see NG become more popular. Not that long ago propane was the ceap fuel and tractors here ran on it. The landfill I run when we have gotten a few offers when we close a cell is to have NG collectors.

 

[Tollster]

Only if I had my own well, becasue once everyone converts, big oil will have a new tool to sodomize us with, and we will promply be right back where we are now.
Its the coporate greed that must be curtailed.

 

[Rancher Ed]

I love Google

"62 million homes in the U.S are heated using natural gas. As of 2009 this number represented about 56 percent of households in the United States."

NaturalGas.org

If I could buy a car, or a half ton pickup that ran on CNG I'd be signing papers tonight.

Ok, just over half use it for heat, and there are probably a few more that have it but don't use it. That still leave a third of the population without it. I've been unable to find anything that shows where the houses are, big city, city/urban, semi-rural, and rural, but I would be it is heavily weighted to the rural and semi-rural being the ones who don't have it, and they are the ones most likely to have trucks.

Now if we are talking cars, you lived in the city, and already had NG, I could see looking into it since you could refill it overnight and the shorter range wouldn't be a hindrance. However, the thread title says trucks and the link is talking about 3/4 tons, and in that market I'm not interested and don't see enough others being interested to make it work.

Ed

 

[Diamondpilot]

Only if I had my own well, becasue once everyone converts, big oil will have a new tool to sodomize us with, and we will promply be right back where we are now.
Its the coporate greed that must be curtailed.

You sound like Obama.:confused2: What is wrong with being successful and making money? They are in business to make money, plain and simple. Follow the money trail, its not the oil companies making all the money its the gubment making it on a nearly 25% tax on most fuels.

I dont like paying $4 a gallon either but its not the oil companies that are doing it to us but thats the liberal MSNBC stand.

Chris

 

[two_bit_score]

Nope, I would never buy one. I had to use one about 15 years ago that was furnished by my employer. It was hard to start when cold and there was a loss of power. I believe the company that did the retro said it was 10%. My unscientific believe it was closer to 20%. Have to be very careful when fueling, more than one person ended up with burns from the LPG.

Then there is the safety aspect. We finally got rid of them when one of them went up in flames. Made quit a show, flames thirty to forty feet in the air. The "official" cause turned out to be a supply line leak that was ignited by the hot exhaust. I wish I had a video of it.

Forgot, the darn tank took up about a third of the truck bed. There is also the loss of fuel economy. If you get say 16 mpg on gas, you may get 12 mpg on propane. As already stated I would never buy one. Not sure I would even drive one if it was given to me.

With all that said, it may be possible they have addressed these issues. It is definitely one thing I would check out.

Probably been a lot of improvements in the last 15 years. Like in almost everything else.

Glad to see you come around to good common sense by the end of your post.



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[two_bit_score]

I love Google

"62 million homes in the U.S are heated using natural gas. As of 2009 this number represented about 56 percent of households in the United States."

NaturalGas.org

If I could buy a car, or a half ton pickup that ran on CNG I'd be signing papers tonight.

You make some excellent points about CNG as a transportation fuel. I too would love to have a CNG powered truck. Someday I really hope it is the primary transportation fuel.

Almost every street in America ha or is relatively close to a natural gas pipeline thanks to a nationwide network already in place.

If I were Energy Czar I'd go to some major companies like Wal-mart and try to work out a deal to get a CNG refueling station in every station they have. Keep the price down without putting taxes on it. Once people start seeing that they can easily refuel and if the vehicles don't need to be dual systems, just straight CNG, it would be more reasonable.

I'd like to see as little government involvement as possible. Some will be necessary.

Here is an interesting system from the UK Gasfill - CNG refuelling at home.



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[timster2]

The problem I see with CNG is that the gas suppliers will tie their price to the price of gasoline. They will offer CNG at 20% less than gasoline as a marketing ploy instead of selling it at whatever it is worth. This is not conjecture it is what the gas company quoted for CNG as a motor fuel.

 

[two_bit_score]

The problem I see with CNG is that the gas suppliers will tie their price to the price of gasoline. They will offer CNG at 20% less than gasoline as a marketing ploy instead of selling it at whatever it is worth. This is not conjecture it is what the gas company quoted for CNG as a motor fuel.

They have to recover costs and make a profit to stay in business.




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[Monster5601]

I think Honda has a car factory ready....

Because of my work and where I live it is best to buy a domestic brand. I also need a vehicle that can accommodate me since I am 6' 4" tall. The Asian cars I have tried to get in, I gave difficultly clearing the door opening with my head and once in, my head is just touching the head liner.

more than one person ended up with burns from the LPG.

You realize there is quite a difference between LPG and CNG and this thread was about CNG?

 

[wcampbell47]

In the 70's I had a 3/4 ton truck that I converted to dual fuel. I fitted an 80 gallon LPG tank across the bed just behind the cab. I could only buy 5 gallons of gas every other day, but could pull into my local propane dealer and get a full load. The LPG setup ran very clean, but did not give me the mileage that gas did.

The technology is available. I converted because of the shortage of gasoline and the tax benefit of using propane. At that time I did not pay road taxes for propane which made it much less than gasoline.

 

[timster2]

They have to recover costs and make a profit to stay in business.
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True they need to operate a business pay share holders, I get that. However if something happens in the middle east and gas jumps a dollar a gallon what has that to do with the pipeline from Louisiana and the supply of NG. The price for NG has been dropping since more reserves and wells are being drilled here in the US. I'm just saying NG should be sold for what it cost to produce, profits for those involved transportation, compression, retail sales etc. not tied to the price of imported gasoline.