PHH Arval Alternative Fuel Vehicle (AFV) Study Part 3: Natural gas vehicles

October 23, 2012

By Sarah Mallonga, Project Manager, Strategic Consulting for PHH Arval

This is the third part of a series of articles from PHH’s Strategic Consulting group on alternative fuel vehicles. Here we examine natural gas vehicles (NGVs), including the ideal fleet scenarios and the pros and cons of including them in your fleet.

Natural gas vehicles (NGVs)

Natural gas is an odorless, non-toxic, gaseous mixture of hydrocarbons – predominantly methane. Two forms of natural gas are used as transportation fuel: compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

CNG is stored onboard a vehicle in tanks at high pressure. Dedicated CNG vehicles are designed to run on CNG only, while bi-fuel vehicles can also run on gasoline or diesel. In heavy duty vehicles, bi-fuel, compression-ignited engines are slightly more efficient then spark-ignited dedicated natural gas engines. However, a bi-fuel engine increases the complexity of the fuel-storage system by requiring storage of both types of fuel.

NGVs are best suited for fleets that operate in these scenarios:

• Light to heavy duty commercial vehicles, with fueling locations on regularly scheduled routes, or a return to base required for fueling
• Partnership with local gas utility
• Centrally garaged vehicles usually provide the best return on a natural gas infrastructure investment
• Higher volume of vehicles to achieve scalable return

To store more energy onboard a vehicle in a smaller volume, natural gas can be liquefied. LNG must be kept at very cold temperatures and stored in double-wall, vacuum-insulated pressure vessels. LNG fuel systems are typically used only in heavy duty vehicles.

The following are pros and cons of these vehicles:

For a more detailed analysis of the AFVs that would be best suited for your specific fleet, please contact your PHH Account Team.

For our previous articles offering qualitative analyses of alternative fuel vehicles, please go to:

• Hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids
• Electric vehicles

Also stay tuned for our next analysis, which will focus on propane or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vehicles.

Tags:   Environmental initiatives , Fuel Trends , Consulting

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