Ford says YES to CNG F-150!

[WilliamBos]

I tend to see it that way too. I'm not too keen on the combo idea but I think Ford must be looking at it as a crossover type vehicle. If the break even point is three years then an owner who had it five years would have saved some money in the last two years and as additional fueling stations would have hopefully been opened they would be more inclined to buy a single fuel vehicle by then.

You are still limited to how far you can travel, dual fuel is a much better choice.

 

[slowzuki]

Great big CNG terminal near here with transport trailers of CNG loading and delivering 24 hours a day reselling to companies too far from a pipeline. I assume they can fill trucks too. Do they extract energy during the expansion of the CNG like those air powered cars? Seems like there is quite a bit of kW stored in the compression too.

 

[timster2]

I think CNG is an all or nothing type of solution. Running it in an engine that's designed for gas is like buying a gear tractor that's designed for pulling a plow and then trying to use that tractor for loader work. Sure it'll work but you loose the time saving advantage that a tractor with HST would give you. To get the full advantage out of CNG you would need to change the compression ratio. I'm not sure if Ford could play around with the boost from the turbos to help offset this. It could be possible to have different boost levels for CNG and gas, not sure how much it would help.

Gasoline engines use a standard Otto cycle dedicated CNG engines can use a Miller cycle to increase volumetric efficiency. Miller cycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia CNG is typically 138 octane so there is a lot of room for compression, turbocharging, and supercharging. If you build a dual fuel engine you loose some of those options.

Range is an issue with a dedicated CNG only vehicle. That is why they work good for fleets that typically leave and return to the same location daily doing the same job. As long as they don't exceed the fuel range all is ok. Typical personal use vehicles have a different driving profile weekday vs weekend, vacation etc. where range quickly becomes an issue.

If your motivated you can make CNG work for you and save money. CNG driving corridors are being established over popular interstates, however, with only a few participating stations along the way you need to make sure the station is working. If a station is out of service for any reason you need to have backup locations to fuel or fill at every possible opportunity.

 

[flusher]

Actually Natural gas is renewable, there is very little difference between that and straight methane. Wood, trash, grass, and many other things can be used as sources of methane. Many landfills and farms are producing this and in some cases is pumped right into the gas lines, others it is used to generate power.

Natural gas is between 70 and 95% methane.

http://www.toutsurlegaznaturel.com/pdf/THEABCs.pdf

You're right. Some of the larger farms in the CA Central Valley generate methane from waste and use it in their equipment.

 

[timster2]

Actually Natural gas is renewable, there is very little difference between that and straight methane. Wood, trash, grass, and many other things can be used as sources of methane. Many landfills and farms are producing this and in some cases is pumped right into the gas lines, others it is used to generate power.

Natural gas is between 70 and 95% methane.

http://www.toutsurlegaznaturel.com/pdf/THEABCs.pdf

The problem with landfill gas, what is commonly referred to as "swamp gas", is that the methane level can vary quite a bit. Production on road vehicles cannot adjust injection volume to compensate for such a wide variation in methane composition. There are also a lot if inert gasses in that volume that hinder the combustion process as well. Generators and other stationary equipment running at landfills are specially designed to run on less than perfict combinations of gas. I have run trucks on landfill gas blends. The landfill gas was pumped into the gas pipeline and we took it out of the same pipeline a half mile away and compressed it by then the blended gas was at least 95% or better.

 

[slowzuki]

Could use the old russian/chinese natural gas bags strapped onto the roof!

 

[timster2]

Could use the old russian/chinese natural gas bags strapped onto the roof!

I think Ford will do it better. Funny thing is it did work!

 

[Scooby074]

I think Ford will do it better. Funny thing is it did work!

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Nothing could possabli go wrong!

 

[two_bit_score]

I think Ford will do it better. Funny thing is it did work!

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:thumbsup:

 

[3930dave]

I think Ford will do it better. Funny thing is it did work!

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Well, you'd only have to hit that low-hanging overpass once, to increase the clearance !

Rgds, D.