RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!

CamperD, I don't understand why we aren't pushing NG cars instead of electrics. The technology is not only there, but reasonably tested on buses and fleet cars for years. I would think the problems you mention could be quickly overcome, whereas with electric, two huge problems remain, i.e., poor batteries and lack of generating capacity should their numbers increase substantially.

What can you say as to current state of safeguards say in a rear-end collision?

LindsayRichards wrote:
I would love to hear more about the CNG vehicle that somebody mentioned they had earlier. What kind is it, what type engine, performance, actual physical size and location of tank, and the possibility of home overnight compression of natural gas up to the 3,500 psi. I think this technology can really help the US as well as RV'ers. Please answer.

our is a 2002 Honda Civic. It's a factory made CNG car which Honda has been producing since 1998, selling to the public since probably 2005? But never in any real volume numbers. They mostly sell to power company fleets. Our was bought off auction by a Utah car dealer (CNG is real cheap in Utah) then I bought it from the dealer and had it shipped to California about 2 years ago.

To answer your questions: It's a typical Civic engine factory converted over to CNG, performance is a bit lower than it's Gasoline counterpart. Good mileage at 30+ mpg but it only holds about 8 gge (gas gallon equivalent) so range is not great. We get a real world 200 miles before filling up. The tank is physically large, and is in the trunk, leaving you with only 1/2 the trunk for storage useage. It's my wife's daily driver, she keeps an emergency kit, and a gym bag in there, that's about all that fits. :)

Home compression is possible, and lowers the cost of CNG to ~$1.50/gge (when you include the energy cost of running the compressor) and is super easy to use. However, it is very expensive to set up. Not only does the equipment cost north of $5000 (more like $10k if you want a nice 1 gallon per hour setup instead of the .5 gallon per hour of the slow pumps) but installation must be done by a 'professional installer', getting your city to approve the install has been known to be challenging, and the home pumps have a reputation for being less than reliable. :R But home fill definitely is possible, and IMO would be a game changer if it got cheaper. Not sure why there has never been a push for this? :?

Since my wife drives right by SFO every day she commutes, and there are 5+ CNG stations withing a few miles of the airport, it makes no sense for us to do home fill. The payback is not there when we can quick fill at the station for $2.14/gge (as of this morning). If I thought we were going to keep CNG cars long term, I'd invest in a home fill just for the convenience of it, but to be honest I probably won't buy another one.

The biggest downside to ME is the complexity. You take an existing gas powered car. Then on top of all the systems, add another one. And it's a potentially dangerous high pressure (3600psi) system that is complex and requires very specific tools and skills to work on. And the tanks themselves are only good for 15 years (and must be inspected every 3 years) so there is no used market once your car is over that age. At 15 years you either dump the car or replace the tank to the tune of $3000! They are not very DIY friendly, just a whole nother layer of complication on an already complicated car. That said, we have over 100k miles on ours and it's showing no signs of problems so in my case the reliability issues are theoretical, not real. However, our fuel tank expires in 2017, what then?

Anyway, a bit long winded... I currently own both a CNG and an all electric car. And Gas, of course. Both CNG and electric are viable, but the infrastructure is lacking. Which is odd, since most homes already have both natural gas and electricity plumbed into them!

FWIW, the trucking industry is making a bit of a push for LNG, it's probably a better way to go for trucks/RV's than CNG.

I would love to hear more about the CNG vehicle that somebody mentioned they had earlier. What kind is it, what type engine, performance, actual physical size and location of tank, and the possibility of home overnight compression of natural gas up to the 3,500 psi. I think this technology can really help the US as well as RV'ers. Please answer.

Folks, I have no problem with economic "pure" discussions regarding energy and what work it will perform in a given set of parameters. However, when rebates, free charging stations (nothing is free), government sales incentives, and phony development and production costs are tossed into the equation, there is no way to have a meaningful discussion sans a political slant. And that is where the problems start and the posts start to be deleted.

In my early engineering days we spoke in terms of the Volt, Ampere, Joule, Oersted, Hertz, and others.

These laws were generally quantitative rather than qualitative thus rendering fewer points of debate.

I had a guy admiring and asking questions about my LEAF. Really liked it but like many was certain the range was not enough. So I told him he could get range with a Tesla. Oh that was too much money. I told him I bet Tesla is less than this 750iL you are driving....

BTW my LEAF out the door net of rebates was $25,300.

camperdave wrote:

smkettner wrote:
BTW Volt does go 300+ miles on electric + a tank of gasoline.

And the Tesla S does 238 miles pure electric (as tested by Motor Trend)! Now that's one bad ass car. To quote Ferris, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." :B

Ha Ha Ha These guys are whining at a car that cost about $35,500 with every option a board or 29,500 without the kitchen sink. Do you really think that they are up to a car costing between $84,000 to $97,000?????
I think its battry is about 4 times larger than the Volt which explains the added miles.

smkettner wrote:
BTW Volt does go 300+ miles on electric + a tank of gasoline.

And the Tesla S does 238 miles pure electric (as tested by Motor Trend)! Now that's one bad ass car. To quote Ferris, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." :B

cekkk wrote:

camperdave wrote:

LindsayRichards wrote:
Few people are willing to buy a car that goes 35 miles on an 8 hour charge.

Seeing as that would meet the needs of about 90% of the population, why do you think it is that people won't buy it?

Note to cd. Check sales. :S

First let me say the car gets betw'n 40 and 44 miles constantly on electric.

Second it only takes 3 to 4 hours to charge and there are a lot of charging sites already and more coming some are free.

Third August was the best month so far for Volt sales.

Forth every day and I mean every day people ask me about the car. they have some info but like Lindsay it is flawed. Most are really excited after learning about it.

Fifth I reset my trip meter have gone 280 miles and used .1 gallon of gas so that equates to 2800 mpg.

With the new fuel standards I am sure the car companies have their sites on cars like the Volt to make it ease to reach those standards.
The good news is that it applies to trucks also so maybe we'll see diesels getting far more MPG!

BTW Volt does go 300+ miles on electric + a tank of gasoline.

AO_hitech wrote:
While many people don't drive more than 35 miles MOST of the time, very few people want to be limited to that. I certainly would not, and I hug trees. ;)

I get that for sure! It was a big change when we bought our CNG powered car which only has a 200 mile range and can only be filled up at special stations which are few and far between (only one in the county I live in). Now that I daily drive a car with a 50 mile range, I laugh at the days that 'only' having a 200 mile range used to stress me out. :)

I still have the big old van for road trips tho, I couldn't be driving electric if I could only have one car.