With the present state of the art, the pollutant emissions of natural gas-fuelled cars and light-duty commercial vehicles are already below the ULEV (Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) level while natural gas-fuelled heavy-duty vehicles even outdo the EURO IV standards to be expected for the year 2005. Moreover, the potential for further development is considerable. There is a broad range of cars and light-duty commercial vehicles available with monovalent and bivalent engines with closed loop mixture formation (Lambda=1). Unlike these, there is a trend towards lean combustion engines with monovalent heavy duty commercial vehicles which will surely demonstrate over the next one to two years their potential for saving 10 % or more fuel as compared with Lambda=1 engines. Two different investment projects with 269 vehicles operated all over Germany and another 568 vehicles planned to be run in four model locations are to verify the fitness for practical operation and readiness for series production of gas-fuelled vehicles. The periodic routine measurements taken in the first project and the specific durability tests on gas-fuelled busses with odometer readings of up to 140000 km proved the possibility of managing the problems encountered and of guaranteeing in principle the long-term stability of the low emissions. While gas-fuelled busses on average still use 25 % more energy than diesel-fuelled busses do, further optimisation or the operation of lean combustion engines will substantially reduce this level before long. Gas tanks of less weight and larger volume will contribute to save fuel and to extend the cruising range. When looking at the operating expense, it must be noted that the fuel costs have to be taken account of and so have the costs of gas supply and maintenance. It is possible even these days to run fleets of gas-fuelled vehicles with no substantial increase in costs as compared with diesel-fuelled vehicles. Most of the fleet operators confirm the high availability and the short downtimes of NGVs. Provided the gas service stations are adequately dimensioned, the duration of fuelling is compareable to the time required for fuelling with liquid fuels.
NGV experiences in Germany
Erfahrung mit Gasantriebfahrzeugen in Deutschland
1998
10 Seiten, 5 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 10 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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