Cars running on LPG

If you had a duel fuel car in Holland petrol/lpg  there was an extra tax to pay,so if that was also the case in other countries ,maybe the manufacturers did not think it worth while(poor sales)

It was quite a few years ago now but I was struck by how many LPG refuelling places there were in Holland.

It's definitely a question worth asking. I remember Top Gear covering this and they were saying that motorists had the opportunity of saving a packet over petrol use. I do know that the LPG car produces loads of CO2 and this may be a reason for the Government losing interest in them. Certainly, many installers of LPG systems have gone out of business over the years due to lack of interest. However, there is always a silver lining to any cloud. The reason we have Safefill Cylinders is because they started life as LPG installers for cars. They too started to fail as customers dried up. However, they had gone to the trouble and expense of installing a gas rig so that they could refuel cars and supply gas when the installation was done. As soon as the rig was in place, idiots started asking if they would refill their Calor Cylinders!! Safefill would have nothing to do with this practice but realised there was a need in the market- the rest is history!  

If you convert your car to run on LPG do you lose oomph, can your car still tow as much weight?

I did look at converting  a few years ago but there seemed to be insufficient refuelling points in the UK.   Slightly better today I gather.

Not sure I agree entirely with that promotional material DD, but generally agree! 

LPG is typically a hydrocarbon fossil fuel as is petrol or diesel, the only difference is the size of the carbon chains in the molecules (carbon and hydrogen).

LPG have the smallest molecules, up to Diesel with the largest molecules.

In general, as the number of carbons increase, so does the energy density, so lpg has the lowest energy per litre and diesel the highest.

If you burn any hydrocarbon, you get (in simplistic terms) Carbon & Hydrogen molecule + Oxygen (burns releasing energy) giving Carbon Dioxide and Water (C+O -> CO2, H+O -> H2O)  [plus a whole bunch of other smaller reactions from other chemicals present, sulphurs to SOx, Nitrogen to NOx etc]

lpg is not a 'low carbon fuel' other than there are proportionally fewer carbons per hydrogen in the molecule, but the lower energy density means you have to burn more to get the same efficiency.

It is certainly more consistent, being only a couple of types of hydrocarbon molecule, rather than a bunch of different species.

I think the main issue has been cost, as demand increased, so did the governments ability to tax it, doubling the price and removing much of the cost benefit from shelling out £1500 for a conversion!

I have LPG heating/cooking here in the sticks - since 1991 - the chimney sweep checks the flue regularly and sometimes there is a pinch or two of dust collected in the bottom.  Some years before that I had oil and it broke down in another home.  Nice man suggested swapping to LPG because maintenance was less because it burns so clean.  It's still the original Rayburn from back then and a few igniters have been replaced.  At 22p a litre I still think I am winning.  

My fear in a car would be an accident but petrol is gruesome too!  

Waitrose are running trucks on biomethane gas, see here  Not LPG but maybe a step in the right direction.

David

Agreed - the energy density difference is not massive a and you should be able to tell little if any difference unless you are driving like a race driver!