The key facts:
-A very cheap fuel due to the significantly lower fuel duty imposed by the Government. A litre of LPG currently costs less than half the price of petrol or diesel on the forecourt.
-A litre of LPG allows a vehicle to travel around 80% of the of the distance it could travel on a litre of petrol.
-LPG refuelling points are being introduced all over the country. There were approximately 1295 in the UK as at 19/Dec/2003 – and the number is still increasing fast.
-Most types of vehicle can be built, or converted, to run on LPG. It is much easier and cheaper to convert a vehicle with a petrol engine than one running on diesel.
-LPG has proved particularly popular as a fuel for cars and vans, most of which are bi-fuel; they carry both petrol and LPG and can change from one to the other at the flick of a switch.
-LPG is sometimes marketed as ‘Autogas’.
The typical cost of converting a passenger car or light vehicle to run on LPG is around £1,500. More vehicles with an LPG option are now available direct from the manufacturers.
What is LPG?
Liquefied petroleum gas is mainly comprised of propane. It is a by-product of oil refining and is also associated with natural gas (methane) fields. It is often used as a bottled gas for cooking and heating where there is no natural gas pipeline nearby. LPG vehicles can be set up to run either as ‘dedicated’ vehicles which have LPG as their only fuel and are spark ignited (like petrol), or ‘bi-fuel’ (sometimes known as ‘dual-fuel’) vehicles. These are vehicles with petrol engines converted so that they can operate on LPG or petrol. In all cases, gas is stored on the vehicle in special fuel tanks; it is then piped to the engine and introduced into the engine intake tract, controlled by a regulator.