new heavy trucks

GVSII

Member
A question for the truckers.I'm hearing a lot of talk about trucks using CNG.I'm guessing that they're spark ignition.Question is, how do they stack up against diesel powered trucks?Are they big displacement gasoline engines,direct injection with high compression,are they turbo/supercharged?Whats the story?All I here is how clean they run.Doesn't tell me much.
 
They are large cubic inch engines with turbos. They are similar in size to deisel engines. The ones dart
has are cummins and acording to the drivers are not real powerful but get the job done. They have spark
ignitions that take a lot of maintenance to keep them running. The last I heard they required a tune up
every 50,000 miles and the spark plugs were not something just anyone can replace. They also take
special buildings for maintenance so that they don't explode.
 
As predicted, meddling by the federales has created yet another artificial market.

Expect similar reaction in the farm tractor market.

Stay tuned.

Dean
 
St Cloud builds passenger buses (New Flyer brand). They produce CNG fueled models as well as diesels. They are turboed and seem as powerful (and more
responsive to the pedal) compared to diesel. Their only issue is the weight of the CNG tanks on the roofs. The fuel consumption is more per gallon, but is
still less expensive to operate. Jim
 
Some trucking companies have ran natural gas for years.I saw a program on pbs interviewing a trucking company with several hundred trucks on natural gas.I think he said they had a 500 mile range. I passed one the other day on the interstate. It made a lot more noise than a diesel.
 
Two years ago, the natural gas industry had a CNG semi-truck set up at the Kansas State Fair for everybody to view. According to them, the CNG truck was the magic elixir that would cure every problem known to the trucking industry....until you asked them some tougher questions.
Like "How many refueling station do you have in the state?" Suddenly the loud hawkers got pretty quiet. "None, but some will be built soon." was the answer. "How much PSI is in the natural gas tank?" "Several thousand PSI..." was the answer in an even quiet voice.
"How often do you need to replace the hydrogen tanks?" It got even quieter because the guy gave me a stare and never answered me.
I had a few more questions, but I got the feeling no more questions would be answered and I left.
 
Most common nat gas truck engine is the Cummins ISG 12. 12 liters with 400 hp spark ignited.
 
Jim, just a guess here, but I'm gonna bet the only reason they seem to wind up faster when you stomp the throttle is due to them having no particulate emissions like the diesels, so the diesels are programmed to wind up slow no matter how hard you jam the pedal, to prevent the black smoke and particulate emissions.
 
I think the CNG is a farce. Anyone besides me remember back in the late 60's and early 70's diesel was about 1/2 the cost of gas. A heck of a lot of day cabs, tandem axle and single axle medium duty trucks were gas. Then the fuel embargo. As the price of gas climbed almost everything went over to diesel plus in the 80's they started sticking diesels in pickups. As the demand for diesel went up so did the cost. Now on road diesel is more expensive than gas. Sure right now NG is cheap. But if they can increase demand the price will go up too. Every home that switches over, every CNG vehicle they make, every coal fired power plant that converts increases demand. Follow the money!

Rick
 
The market will resolve all such problems in the most efficient way if, and only if, the federales are kept out.

Good luck.

Dean
 
Propane is the big thing around here right now,the drivers say they pull good but the mechanics are having a hard time keeping them running right.(4.5MPG)
 
They floated that idea several years ago when the price of diesel was so high. At that time the payback time for a trucking company was said to be a little over a year. However, for OTR trucks CNG will not give you enough range so they were talking about LNG, liquified in the fuel tank just like propane. The only problem is that the pressure is a couple thousand PSI. That means special equipment to fill and maintain.

Many place have been using CNG with success. The DFW airport runs a bunch of their fleet of buses and ancillary vehicles on CNG. Of course they don't go far from the refueling station. The buses had big turbo motors and the inside of the exhaust pipe was free of soot. I don't know if they were direct injection or not.

It's a chicken and egg problem whereby no one will buy if there are no refueling stations and not stations being built because there are no vehicles to service.
 
I have a customer who delivers new heavy trucks all over the country. He hates taking CNG trucks because they rarely make it to their
destination without a breakdown, remote Cummins dealers don't know much about them, fueling options are few and far between, and they require
tons of down time to fill, especially in the winter. He does like them for the fact he gets a fuel stipend in addition to delivery fees,
unlike diesels.
 
You can always add lpg or cng to the intake of the
diesel engine. It will use less diesel that way. How
it pencils out I don't know. Too much and you'll get
predetonation and melted pistons, too!
 
No "greenie" here but Columbus Ohio's COTA uses a number of CNG buses, especially downtown. The seem to me to be quieter and no smelly clouds of diesel exhaust. For that use CNG seems like a good option.
 

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