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Vehicle manufacturers are now showinc a lot more interest in

12th September 1981
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Page 66, 12th September 1981 — Vehicle manufacturers are now showinc a lot more interest in
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

lpg as a viable fuel alternative. It's cheaper, lead-free and suitable for anything up to 31/2 tons gross; but how soon will it become an operational reality?

R A LIGHT VAN operator re have traditionally been ) types of fuel available — rol and diesel, it is only nparatively recently that Jefied petroleum gas (lpg) :ame recognised as a viable :rnative. The choice between rol and diesel has become ; clear-cut since the taxation icks on derv, and lpg is still in )mparatively protected iation.

,s far as lpg is concerned, re has been a significant nge in the market place and t is the involvement of the licle manufacturers — or at 3t some of them. Ford and BL, example, have recently :red factory approved difications to their Transit I Sherpa respectively to allow use of !pg.

he engine manufacturers had ays been worried about the ct of lead-free fuel (and lpg is h a fuel) on the engine, ticularly in the exhaust valve 3. As such they had always n cautious about accepting warranty on engines which been converted.

practice, although they gave -nselves the option of sing the warranty, they did often exercise this option, ause there were few

ranty claims anyway. Most powered engines were rated on the urban cycle type ical distribution work, so the rate on the valveseats was relatively low.

If a valve insert was used which was equal to the task then there was no problem. Engines with aluminium cylinder heads were already fitted with suitable valve inserts, so no modification was required. With cast-iron cylinder heads there was a potential problem, however — "potential" because the valve seat problems were not inevitable; the risks, however, were greater.

With the cast-iron cylinder head on the Transit, Ford now offers a version with inductionhardened valve seats for lpg use, whereas BL took the other route and fitted separate valve seat inserts.

Don Westerside, md of Landi Hartog (UK) Ltd, has strong views about where he thinks the vehicle industry should be heading. Admittedly his comments are not without bias but they are interesting, nevertheless.

Currently there are about 600,000 light commercial vehicles operating on petrol, and Don argues there is a strong case for at least half of these using lpg. The total number o vehicles, including private cai which actually use lpg in Britt is put at around 35,000.

Lpg is considered by Don Westerside as a viable automotive fuel for anything I to 31/2 tons gross. Above this figure, it ought to be diesel. There are, however, exceptioi to this approximate rule of thumb and one concerns municipal vehicles where the improved noise and exhaust emission levels are priority items.

he claimed savings from ng I pg come almost entirely m the fact that there is less :y levied on the fuel.

rrently, a typical motorway .np price for lpg is about 12, compared with around 78 for petrol. As this is a tax (antage, it does beg the ?stion what happens if the vernment decides to bring up tax level on a par with that of rol and derv?

he only answer to this is to )te from Hansard concerning )ply to a question on log duty ;ed in the House of

-nmcins. Secretary of State for Treasury, Peter Rees, gave ; assurance. "My Right nourable and learned friend ; continued in the Budget the ictice of dutying lpg for use as md fuel at half the rate )lied to petrol.

I have reviewed the uments for encouraging the 3 of log as a road fuel and I (e decided that we shall not

during the lifetime of this -ninistration, to change this ationship, unless the growth rutomotive use of lpg should :orne such as seriously to Jermine the revenue from er road fuels.

In any event we shall not ik to change the relationship ;uch a way to discriminate ;inst lpg, after taking into ;ount relative calorific values engine efficiencies." he comment about relative orific values refers to the rol/lpg comparison, where lpg-powered vehicle gets ough fuel some 15 per cent

quicker than its petrol-engineo counterpart. Taking this heavier fuel consumption into account, there is still a potential saving to be made of around 30/40p per gallon.

I found the wording of the official statement significant in the sense that it provides the usual ministerial let out by saying "unless the growth . should become such as seriously to undermine the revenue".

The typical cost of converting a light van, say a Sherpa, to lpg, is around £300. excluding vat. Taking an average fuel consumption for a petrolenginecl Sherpa as about 20mpg on a typical local delivery run, then this conversion cost could be recovered in about 18,000 miles.

The main disadvantage with lpg in Britain is the shortage of filling stations which handle the fuel. At the moment there are about 300, with the increase being very slow.

The UK has tended to lag behind other European countries in its acceptance of lpg — at least for vehicle use — particularly when compared with Italy and Holland, for example. The accompanying pie chart puts the position into perspective.

In Holland, the fuel has been available for a long time at a price which makes conversion attractive. Also there is a very large refinery at Rotterdam which does a lot of processing for other countries. There is, for example, a large volume of petrol and dery piped into Germany.

Belgium is another country which has seen a rapid increase in the use of lpg, and this has been due solely to the relative taxation on the gas when compared with petrol.

Progress in the field of electronics has moved into the

lpg field area, with Landi Harto. developing an electronic contrr unit which replaces the conventional evaporator pressure regulator. The systerr is based on a microchip processor which automatically monitors and controls the air/fuel ratio.

According to Landi Hartog, tF use of this control unit increasE the efficiency of the lpg system by about ten per cent over the conventional regulator.

One interesting point to note in these days of inflation is that the introduction of the electron control unit did not affect the prices of the complete lpg system.

Don Westerside thinks that b the mid-Eighties, conventional vehicle carburation will be replaced by such electronically controlled systems. The curren type of pressure regulator will not be able to provide the necessary degree of control by mechanical means.

He also visualises development in another area and that is towards a single fuE engine. Engines running on IN today are in effect dual fuel uni which can run on either petrol lpg, with the choice of fuel beir controlled by a simple switch. There are two reasons for this, and both are traditional. As I mentioned, filling statior catering for lpg users are still few so an operator cannot yet commit himself to a vehicle powered solely by lpg. The oth reason is that all vehicles capable of running an lpg are conversions from existing petr units anyway.

Several manufacturers are currently working on designs fi straight gas engines, and Don Westerside predicts that the fir is likely to go on sale within thE next couple of years. Such an engine could, he argued, be made more efficient than a converted engine.

It would not necessarily me.Ea complete re-design, but a change in compression ratio tc 11 to one from the usual nine t, one would be a logical move.

There is a strong argument f I pg purely as a lead-free fuel. Environmentalists are trying tc reduce the lead content in petr and figures show that converting ten per cent of current vehicles to run on lpg would have the same effect as reducing the lead content in petrol by ten per cent.

Don Westerside is nothing if not confident about the future for I pg as an automotive fuel.

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Locations: Rotterdam

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