Other than not having enough natural gas service stations do you know why we are not driving more vehicles powered by natural gas? According to the included article natural gas is more plentiful than gasoline. It burns cleaner, can produce more power and does not have the environmental impact that gasoline does and it's reported to be 50% the cost of gasoline.

Of the 12 million vehicles world wide powered by natural gas there are only about 112,000 (NGVs) on the road in the United States – less than 0.1% of total U.S. vehicles – mostly owned by fleets.

So why are there not more natural gas powered vehicles? Would you consider converting your new F150 to natural gas? I wonder how long it would cost to recover the initial cost of the conversion.

What is CNG (compressed natural gas)?

 

That's the bulk of your answer I'll bet.

What little infrastructure for CNG there must be its probably all in a small area so anyone living out side of that wouldn't consider CNG in the first place.

I have been wondering pretty much the same thing about Propane powered vehicles.

 

Big gas companies are in control with the BIG money.

 

Yep. Also, I wonder how safe CNG vehicles are in crash tests? I am sure they must meet the same standards as gassers, but COMPRESSED gas just seems to me like a bomb waiting to go off. BTW, all our city maintenance vehicles (at least the ones I see around) are CNG, including the '09 f-150s.

 

Stephen you're onto something there as far as safety...not to say that a 20+ gallon tank of gasoline is safe, but compressed gasses are a little more volatile.

I remember about 15 years ago when VA Natural Gas had an expo in our locality showing off a Crown Vic and a few other NG powered vehicles and those tanks were mounted wayyy inboard from the vehicle's exterior. The CV's tank was mounted in the truck on that parcel shelf behind the rear seat. I thought it was strange then, but would make sense to put it in a spot where it's less likely to be contacted in a crash.

I think the issue is the support infrastructure for sure. Not enough filling stations, though technically you could fill up at your home.

 

Ford makes a conversion kit for the f150 (5.0 only), and partners with after market installers, the f150 becomes NG/gasoline capable. The cost is far tooo high, but if they were oem, the cost would be much, much lower. NG is plentiful as hell, and it costs less than 1/2 the price of gas per mile. I believe the market (the free market) would love these, if available. Yes there aren't enough fuel centers, the free market would quickly build as many as would be profitable, without the tax payers footing the bill.