WHAT would you say to cutting your fuel bills by up to 40%? With petrol and diesel costs likely to be a major drain on your profits, maybe it’s time to consider an alternative.
Visitors to this year’s Commercial Vehicle Show, at Birmingham’s NEC from 9-11 April, will be able to find about how they can significantly cut fuel bills by converting their vans to run on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
Leading automotive LPG supplier Autogas Ltd will at the show for the first time to discuss the dramatic cost savings and environmental benefits that can be had by converting to run on autogas LPG.
Key components such as the LPG fuel tank and modified fuel-injection system will be shown on a converted van, and visitors to the Autogas stand will be able to talk to experts about the simplicity and advantages of converting existing fleet vehicles to run on autogas LPG.
The company will also show a LPG-powered Citroen Berlingo. And business vans are now available for trial and fleet evaluation purposes.
Around 160,000 vehicles in the UK have been converted to run on autogas LPG and the fuel is available at more than 1,400 filling stations.
In addition to major cost savings, autogas LPG-powered vehicles are far more environmentally friendly than those powered by petrol and diesel, emitting less CO2, NOx, particulates and soot.
I had a Honda FRV converted which I use for work – it’s petrol economy averaged 34mpg, but economy on LPG is less than 25mpg (you have to bear in mind that vehicles start from cold on petrol because LPG will not work in cold engines – so petrol need re-filling regularly too) . With petrol costing 140p and LPG costing 79p (average), savings are not as high as hoped… i.e. 12000 miles on petrol would have cost 12000/34 * £6.36 (per gal) = £2244. On LPG the cost is 12000/25 * £3.59 (per gal) = £1723, saving £521 over 12,000 miles, but this doesn’t account for the petrol fill ups over the period, which I ESTIMATE to be around £300 (6 fillups costing £50) !! It is cheaper, which is great, but ROI is maybe 3 – 4 years in reality (depending on mileage of course), and there’s never an LPG pump when you want one…