Why do we not use natural gas to power vehicles? ?

compressed natural gas, or cng, is being used in many states in this country right now. they are usually used in municipal buses, and fleet vehicles, government or private. the automakers are developing cars that use cng as a fuel source as well for public use. the issue though is the infrastructure and the vehicle fuel tanks. we dont have much in infrastructure in place for the general public to use cng, and the fuel tanks need to be very strong to handle the internal pressures, and they need to handle the constant re-pressurization needed when re-fueling the vehicles. right now the tanks are required to be inspected every 5 years for integrity.

the fuel tanks must also be light enough to be used in a an automobile, as well as located in a place that minimizes its vulnerability to damage.

CNG has been around for a very long time. The infrastructure will not be built because it is to expensive. You can install a single fill station that takes several hours to fill a car economically, but a station to fill 6 cars in under ten minutes, its huge, at least $500,000.

Next, who is willing to fill up every 90 to 270 miles? So, the natural gas car is a good commuter where you have a $10,000 filling station that you can stay hooked to all night to refill your car. Better yet, you keep the gasoline system and run on the NG as you can. Be prepared for a $2000 modification.

Next, the cost is low right now in some areas, as low as $1.00 per GGE. It averages about $2.50 and is as high as $4.00. Its all dependant on if the station is sitting next door to a gas field and if the state (like Utah) is giving a huge temporary rebate.

Finally, lets kick in supply and demand. Natural gas has risen in price faster than crude oil. In 1998 it was $2. today it is $10 and it has not dropped back like crude did last month. Crude oil went from $28 to $140, back to $110. If we all switched to natural gas, the demand will send it to the moon. AND THEN WHAT, your home heating bill will triple, does that sound smart, its ethanol part II, cheap gasoline high cost food.....

First of all, don't fret the answers that insult you. I think we all know what you are asking and for those that pretend they don't, they are probably worse off in life relations than you are in relative linguistics (the understood word).

Several of the answers that are on target claim infrastructure is not there, that's partially true, but dealers would simply need to install a compressed natural gas (cng) tank on premise to get up to speed. It's still going to be slow go because of the government. We look to our government for answers so it stands to reason that we would be more convinced about cng and stations would probably pop up all over the country if our government would change the hundreds of thousands vehicles they have to cng. But that has not happened, I think because the current Administration ideology is that the people lead the way not the Government... Seems like a contradiction huh? But that's the way it is. The idea of government switching over to alternate fuel was from Alex Baldwin (actor) several years ago.

Some car companies are trying to market this, but the infrastructure just isn't there. Fuel would cost less (for now it does), so it might have a market. Honda sells a Natural gas burning Civic in the states, just costs a bit more than the regular civic. I think that infrastructure is the killer here.

There are a few problems that I see with doing this on a large scale. Just like with petroleum back in the 1970's, natural gas is probably nearing its production peak here in the US. We already import it from Canada, and while it represents a small percentage of our consumption it represents a huge chunk of their production. It is also prohibitively expensive to import it from overseas... and guess where a lot of that would have to come from: Russia (see Europe for details on how that's working out)

We have already run into problems in the recent past with natural gas supplies as it is a common home heating fuel and here in the northeast many people struggle to afford it during the winter.

Because the lobbyists in Washington are to powerful & well entrenched in the pockets of politicians. They tout that in doing so, thousands would lose their jobs and thus they would be voted out of office for allowing that to happen. What they don't say is that the same companies would then be making those cars and would need to get employees from somewhere.

Oh that's right, they already have a workforce, guess they would have to re-train them to perform that function instead.

Electric & hydrogen are also viable options but widespread implementation of such would cripple the oil companies.

Tisk-Tisk

Gas as in liquid propane gas, you dingus shiido28.

Also are you talking about the subtle differences between LPG and autogas, or "go gas"? Because if you're asking why don't manufacturers make cars that run on propane then my anwser is they do.

You can simply get it converted by a mechanic. Autogas sells for around 70c per litre in Australia

Yes U got it right.. There are some problems though. Natural gas or methane does not compress ,so the tank is large. It will also deliver less power than gasoline , but it burns much cleaner and the motor will last longer...

Now that T Bone Pickens is selling the idea of natural gas use in cars, it will probably happen. It just takes a big profit motive to make positive change happen.

What are you talking about?!

Gasoline(ones we are using now) ARE natural gases. What do you mean by "natural gas"?