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Comment by game_the0ry | Hacker News Reader

I remember in Pakistan around 2007 a lot of my extended family that loved there converted their gasoline powered cars into natural gas burning cars. This was seemingly cheap and PK has a lot of natural gas reserves (and gasoline was spiking at the time). Most of the modification was putting a natural gas tank in the trunk.

I wondered why people in the US did not do that as much. I guess gasoline did not get cheap enough, or the petro industrial complex lobbied to make sure this never happened.

Overall, I like the idea of the consumer having multiple choices on how they can power their automobiles.

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1. Limited range. There's no natural gas infrastructure in most places so you could only fill up at home.

2. A gasoline tank leak is bad but the risk is relatively limited. A natural gas canister leak has potentially catastrophic outcomes.

3. You usually need to insure the CNG kit separately because your existing policy won't cover its value.

4. Your total insurance costs will likely be higher, and potentially by a lot. Moreover, your carrier may reject the modification entirely and you'd need to find a new insurance carrier.

5. The up front cost is probably not low enough to save you a lot of money in the long run versus trading in for a gently used hybrid or electric vehicle.

There's really no benefit of CNG over electric at this point.

In Canada, many taxis do it. Regular folks don't, largely because of lack of Infrastucture. I have a gasoline station at every corner, off the top of my head I haven't the foggiest idea where I'd fill up with natural gas (edit: I guess it's propane, whopsie!:)

I remember for some time the UPS trucks here we natural gas.

I’ve seen propane based taxis but never seen a natural gas taxi.

Where? I've never seen this on the east coast

Ontario (Ottawa & Toronto), and I think back in the day in Manitoba.

Note my update, it may be propane rather than natural gas though

Honda had a Civic GX CNG model in the 2000s. Home fueling was possible with a fueling device, though refill times were on the scale of L1 or L2 charging.

A number of transit authorities ran CNG buses in the 1990s, but reliability and tolerance to hot weather was an issue. Toronto ended up re-engining a number of its CNG buses with diesel.

Not all places have NG infrastructure, and many parts of North America are extremely rural.

In summary, reliability and overhead cost of building out pipelines for not much gain are the issue.

In the Netherlands there's been variable interest in LPG conversions; last uptick was in 2005 when gas prices went up, apparently interest is increasing now as well. However, the catch is that LPG cars pay more road taxes (idk why), so it only becomes interesting to do the conversion or switch to LPG if you do more than 15.000 kilometers a year.

Volumetric energy density. Either you'd fill up more often or dedicate more vehicle space to energy storage.

Diesel: 10,722.2 W hours / Liter

Gasoline: 9,500.0 W hours / Liter

CNG (3600 psi): 2,500.0 W hours / Liter

NG: 10 W hours / Liter

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

Dangerous in automobile accidents.

Most, possibly all states in the US will refuse to register a LNG conversion. Only the vehicles designed for that fuel from the start (like transit busses) are allowed.

We frequently do it for commercial type vehicles.

Garbage trucks usually run on LNG, lots of delivery vehicles, IIRC even some school busses can

It's weird how people assume all sorts of unlikely conspiracies by the "petro industrial complex". It's mostly the same companies that deal with gasoline and natural gas; they would be happy to sell you either. In most US states it's totally legal to convert a gasoline vehicle to natural gas, and at times they have even been sold by major auto manufacturers. There's not much cost savings for regular consumers but fleet use is fairly common.

https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/natural-gas

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