Voith

I was just wondering, what is the situation with propane powered cars in usa?

are conversions common and what systems do you have there? here all the best sequential systems are made by italians, and some are quite a mess to calibrate.

what is the average price for automotive propane in usa?

I recently bought propane powered bmw and so far it runs great for aprox. half the price of regular gas.

the only real problem with conversion is imo that it significantly reduces the trunk space..

Van

As soon as Voodoo finds this thread, you'll get more info than you bargained for!

alxdgr8

Isn't propane for diesels only? Therefore most propane injection you see in the states is for trucks.

Voith

hm, here is a rule that it is for gas cars only. it is possible to convert diesel, but the price for conversion is more than triple.

my car is otherwise gas powered, so when I run out of propane it switches back to gas..

Scootin159

In short... I've never seen a propane powered car in the US. I honestly haven't looked much, but to give you an idea of their 'popularity' here, I've never seen one in my day-to-day life. However, nearly all of our city buses are either natural gas or propane powered. About the only other propane powered vehicles you ever see are for indoor use (forklifts, etc.).

Potomac-Greg

Back when gas was $4/gallon, maybe it would have made sense. Now that it's back under $2/gallon, I suspect it's not viable. I wonder if there is some tax problem associated with using propane in an over-the-road vehicle? Every other form of road fuel is taxed.

krystar

with a road vehicle u also have to worry about emissions testing and the EPA. i doubt there's a certification path for propane passenger vehicles.

Voith

in italy more than 30% of cars are converted to propane/butane in germany a little less. in slovenia its less than 1%, but european union is forcing countries to start using this fuel as much as possible since pollution from propane powered cars is as much as 90% less than regular cars or diesel powered cars.

every new gas station has a propane pump nowdays, and propane is arround 60% of regular gas price.

the car powered on propane has a little less power(10~15%), and consumes 5~10% more propane than it would consume regular gas, but its still quite good alternative, budgetwise.

I tought they promote this alternative a little more in usa, since there are all this polution problems.
what about california? there are some tight polution laws there, so this would be a logical solution..

here eu is forcing automotive propane usage, so there are even new cars with propane system allready installed.. such as subaru bifuel, and I think mercedes has it too..

harrisonrick

My friend had propane/gas car...it was a dog and very gutless when it was running on propane...I think some cube vans tried it out too...a flop I think.

krystar

certainly would be interesting. propane is mainly known as a cooking and heating fuel here in the US. there would be significant resistance to using it as a automotive fuel since government subsidized corn-ethanol is the big thing. of course that doesn't prevent us car nuts from using it hehe.

Don 944 LA

here around southern California, many utillitie companies use fleets of converted propane or electric cars like the Rav4 etc ...

the buses are also propane too.

The advantage here, is that a propane or electric car allows a single driver to ride in the carpool lane, which is very handy in heavy traffic

krystar

ah. so cali already embraces propane. cool. how do i hook up my bbq grill tank to the car? hehe

harrisonrick

diesels use it for a kinda "NOS" squirt for extra HP IIRC.

V2Rocket

yupp.

ive seen taxis converted to propane as well, a few here in socal but more up in the bay area.

isnt the only big issue with propane getting it to inject properly? oh, and the pressurized bomb in your back seat?

Voith

its no issue if the equipment is right and that tank is a lot safer than a regular gas tank. euro NCAP actually crashed it and than burned it, and it didnt explode.
it has a safety feature that when pressure gets too high, safety valve releases only as much propane as it is necessary for tank to withstand and it releases it away from the car.. as can be seen on this video

in my case the whole system looks like this: