On 25/01/2012 11:16 AM, E M wrote:
I don't know much about it either, but I do know you don't get much range
with a tank of NG, hence why there were used mostly in the city. That's
one reason they were used for city vehicles and taxis. They say it burns
very clean though, and when they were overhauling engines, noticed a big
difference.
For awhile, a large percentage of taxis here (usually the older Crown Vics,
and Caprices) were using natural gas, along with city trucks and some
buses. For whatever reason, NG seems to have fallen out of favour. There
are more Toyota cabs running on gas now, and while most buses still run
diesel, we see more hybrid buses than NG ones. Over the last 6 months,
they have also removed many of the NG filling stations around town, saying
they just weren't profitable.
It would appear, NG has fallen out of favour, and in it's place, hybrid
electric. I don't understand most of it, but I'm sure government
incentives, image, etc., play into it as much as anything here.
Ed
300E
I suspect you mean they ran on propane. We had that for a long while
here to. Most of the cabs were running propane for a few years as it was
a lot cheaper than gasoline and they were running big old GM and Ford
products for the most part. Propane is essentially a liquid. NG has to
be compressed so it tends to be a different thing to work with.
The other thing is that there is a loss of power with such a conversion.
I think they suggest a 15 to 20 % loss of power on a conversion from
gasoline to propane.
Go to NG and it is even lower.
So, the big V8's were capable of losing some power and still running
fine around town as cabs. Not so sure it would be as easy to do with a
small engine. Not many of the big old engines still running around out
there.
I suspect that one of the reasons they fell from favour is that the
conversions were for carbed cars and there have been few of those since
about 1986. I don't think the fuel injection setups are as easy to convert.
Randy
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