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CNG Retrofit
I had a unique opportunity to sit beside a fellow on a flight recently who was a VP for Navistar Trucks. He told me that within the next two years they believe that 80% of the over the road truckers would be on dual fuel using CNG and they were putting up the clean energy fueling stations across the interstates now (@ Flying Js nationwide now).
Did a little research and found out that the operating costs for CNG runs about 40% of using diesel only. Start on diesel, then switch over to CNG. The payback on over the road guys was quoted to me as 7- 8 months. On our Prevost busses, that’s about $500 – $600 per fill up.
The retrofit kit consists of some composite tanks, a low pressure valve, a high pressure valve, a computer controller and an intake nozzle that feeds the intake side of the engine. I’ve seen prices all over the place for the conversion kits without the tanks so there’s a lot of research still to be done on that piece. The tanks are expensive. But as expensive as it sounds, the payback might not be too hard to justify.
While this is kind of a wild hair, makes we wonder if our friends at Prevost/Volvo aren’t already planning on offering the chassis with a dual fuel system in the very near future like the rest of the industry. Those city busses you see with the CNG stickers simply put a couple of the long tanks on top and put a little windscreen around them. I’ve even wondered if the setup already exists. Apparently there’s a number of different mounting solutions already being deployed for the over the road guys, so that doesn’t seem to be as big a problem as I would have imagined.
I don’t know if anybody else has interest in further investigation on this topic or if there’s more already in place than I have seen in my brief investigations.
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24 Replies
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Having been around CNG powered vihicles back in the 80’s with a company I worked for ( and not paying a whole lot of attention) , 80,000 lb. Trucks or 45,000 buses pulling loads with compressed gas would take huge tanks to get from point A to B. I don’t think you get the thremal/kinetic energy from CNG. We had 1/2 ton pick ups that started on gas and changed over to cng. Didn’t get very far on the multible tanks in back. One thing about it, you could run those engines forever and the oil would be as clean as when you put it in. Hope they get it down and when they do expect natural gas to go from less than 5 dollar a thousand though the roof to heat your homes!
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Today I get an opportunity to be a curmudeon……….
I have looked hard and long at my coach and cannot find extra room to store such small things as some spare parts. Where would any of us put a tank large enough to hold any meaningful amount of fuel?
But the most significant fly in the ointment is the payback period. Even if I opted to donate my entertainment bay to CNG instead of a payback expressed in months my usage of the coach which appears to be average would be expressed in years.
Looks like I will stick to burning dinosaurs.
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Sort of related: We are changing our JD lawn care equipment over to lp. (new design) and trucks to lp. Why our cost $1.46 gal delivered. We have tank and pump at yard. One division of company lawn care and landscape (commercial). Local service 100 mile radius. There are Nat Gas fueling stations but many more LP stations if we need to travel further. Most LP- run more than $2.50 gal compared to our price at yard. FWIW only. We did consided NG but the mowers and other grinders etc aren’t avail in NG yet. The new JD have LP tanks built in. Prob not avail to public yet.
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Jdub sent me a picture of their first all CNG tractor put into service a few weeks ago.
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Wonder how big of gas cylinders and what kind of range that truck has?
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I own producing minerals in Wyoming and looking at an average well and the July pay outs at the well head I found:
Oil 3286 barrels (40 gallons per barrel) @950/bbl
Natural Gas 31000 MCF @3.47/MCF
Now I certainly do not know all of the nuances that go into the equation but seems to me that it takes more money to create gasoline, kerosene, diesel and asphalt from a barrel of oil than to package up natural gas, yet the last time I looked at a CNG station it was around 20/ gallon. I don’t know how many cubic feet of compressed gas are in a gallon however I know its a long ways from 1000 cubic feet. Looks to me like CNG is a new profit center, after all gas is cheap, seems to me that 1 MCF is equal to one Therm, or how you get billed for natural gas.
To all that I may add that many years ago we lived next door to an inventor, he had taken a new car and had it also running on natural gas. Evidently it worked fine when the vehicle was straight and level but when it came to hills or acceleration it had to be switched back to gasoline, oh and the inside panel was modified to look like a flight engineers panel on a DC-6…knobs, gauges and valves everywhere. Did I mention the trunk….one big pressure tank filled the entire thing.
Finally given the correct mixture between O2 and GAZ you have a bomb, not quite as bad as propane but close…seems to me that would also be a consideration, especially if you eat and sleep in the coach!
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I hope everyone noticed JDUB’s CNG rig pictured above. The fuel tank for the truck is the big tank at the rear of the tractor. It has its own wheels.
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I figured that this tread would generate some conversation.
As you look at this approach, I’d think that the Entertainer charter guys would be very interested in some kind of CNG retrofit. If you are doing 50,000 to 80,000 miles per year, this would be a no brainer. For us “casual” operators, payback period will definately be a challenge.
Trying to figure out where the tanks would go is yet another challenge. The concept of putting another 2-3 feet of highly flammable tankage height on top of my H3 doesn’t sound like a real good idea. I kind of duck when i go under overpasses now.
I guess in another 10 years I can pickup a good used coach in which Prevost/Volvo has already solved that problem. In the meantime, we might be able to enjoy some lower demand for diesel fuel. If all these over the road guys shift to CNG, diesel ought to get cheaper!
Cheers
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As long as Volvo was brought up, thought I would pass this along. Met a gent the other day who has a new Volvo Truck, a big dude with a 190 inch sleeper on the thing. It has the 500 HP Volvo, believe he said it was a D-9, it also had an automatic transmission with I believe 9 gears. It regenerates, requires DEF but the surprising part is that he claims 13.7 MPG at 65, hauling a load. Claims the engine is turning 1100 RPM in top gear at 65,I can attest that it only had two pedals, gas and brake so there must be some goings on with newer transmixers.
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13.7 at 65 amazing.
I don’t get a heck of a lot more in my 2013 supercrew 4×4 5 ford 1/2 ton running 75. Like I mention early in thread, was around CNG in pickups and had (4) 25 gallon cylinders in bed of pick up. Looked like 250 cubic foot Oxygen welding cylinders. My Boss/Owner of company had 2 chevies in 1980 if my memory is correct during the oilboom in West Texas. They were used for parts pickups. You had to Pressure up about 2 times a week (3200 to 3500 psi) and couldn’t hardley haul anything in back because of tanks. Took about 45 minutes or longer to fill. They were clean running dudes no doubt. They took out refueling station in about 1985. My gas compressor packing place I owned mounted Wakesha Diesel Motors on skids we built that had been converted from Diesel to Natural Gas. Never heard one run. Only diff were heads had plugs it them to fire. Might be difficult on my 2 stroke to drill holes for plugs or Scary!
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I really doubt any truck gets that kind of mileage. In order to get 500 hp out of the Volvo, doesn’t it mean it has to be a D13 engine? If I am right on that, it would be the same engine they put in the Prevost chassis today. There is no way they get anywhere close to that mileage, and unless a truck is hauling foam peanuts for the load, the bus weighs less. Having a lower running RPM at 65 would help, but not to the extent of 13.5 mpg. We had a fleet of trucks that were geared and electronically controlled to run at peak torque at 65 mph. We were close to 80,000 gross most of the time, and for comparison, we avereged 6mpg for the entire fleet for the year.
Two pedal trucks have been around for years now. Roadranger and ZF Meritor are two that have setups like that. 10 speeds & 12 speeds are common for them.
Also, FWIW, while I was at Prevost this week, they were putting in a new Volvo engine in an entertainer coach. The mechanic said it was the second Volvo engine they had needed to replace in a short time. The other was one of the Secret Service busses they use to haul around the worthless politicians in. One of those was in the Nashville shop two years ago when I was there getting oil leaks fixed.
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Mark,
It may well have been a D13 and all I know is what he told me! He did say 1100 RPM at 65 and he was on his way from White Sands, some sort of a HazMat hauler, probably nuclear waste..is that heavy? It was neat as a pin and that sleeper, crazy! He was waiting for some kind of “sniffer” to pick up his trailer and it did have a number of funky looking extra radios installed. I don’t know but there are a lot of crazy things that go on in New Mexico.
BTW I was at Prevost Ft Worth last week and they had one of those government busses, H3, red, white and blue with a big eagle on it, someone had run it into things, a lot of things!
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A couple of years back, this was on display in Oklahoma City. I was told it took something like 26K to convert it over, pretty expensive.
The chassis used was a Country Coach Magna. Tanks were in the storage bays. It was my understanding that all of their service trucks were being converted over at the same time (Old Joe Hodges Trucking).
Don Smith
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Per Prevost, the Volvo engine is set up in our coaches to run 1300 RPM at 70. Maybe someone with one can report on this as well as mileage. Also according to Prevost the Volvo with its improved EGR system could be expected to deliver an improvement of about 1 MPG over the previous Series 60.
13 MPG………..I don’t think so.
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My friend at Arrow Stage Lines in Phoenix is having a rash of engine failures with the Volvo D 13 engine in his Prevost he has replaced 3 in different buses @ less than 50,000 miles.
He says his DD 13 engines get better fuel milage in the Setra than the D13 Volvos in the Prevost he is not happy with the H-45 and the D 13 Volvo engines down time has cost him a ton of money
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