• Ford
• new cars
• natural gas
• new trucks
• Chicago Auto Show

Other than our current shotgun marriage with ethanol, the United States tends to stand by that most common of vehicle fuels, petroleum. There are exceptions, such as cars that run on methane or used vegetable oil, but in numbers that are the statistical equivalent of urban legends. Even hybrids, with all of their media attention and apparent cultural momentum, are still nibbling away at the edges, with a market percentage share in the single digits. While the rest of the world invests in ethanol from sugar cane and methane culled from slaughtered cows, for better or worse, America is sticking with gasoline.

Leave it to America's only profitable carmaker to take a chance, and try to introduce a little complexity to the refueling landscape. At the 2010 Chicago Auto Show, Ford unveiled the Transit Connect Taxi, a new version of its North American Truck of the Year award-winning van that can be easily refitted to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Just to be clear, Ford isn't shipping any Transit Connects with a natural gas tank already installed. The company is offering an engine prep package that consists largely of hardened valve seats, to increase the vehicle's long-term durability while running on either CNG or LPG. For the warranty to remain intact, whoever installs the fuel tank and internal plumbing must also follow calibration specifications provided by Ford—according to Jerry Koss, Ford fleet marketing manager, that amounts to reprogramming the fuel system since natural gas burns at a different mixture ratio than gasoline. The price of a CNG or LPG conversion depends on the installer, but can be a few thousand dollars per vehicle. And once the conversion is completed, it's not a simple process to switch back to gasoline. Another downside is that the high-pressure tanks take up cargo space behind the rear seats. Pricing for the Transit Connect Taxi hasn't been announced, but Ford expects the price of the engine prep to be comparable to the CNG/LPG package the company began offering for its E-Series vans last October, which cost $315.

Despite all of the fine print, and the fact that most buyers would still have to pay a third party to convert the new van, this could be a major turning point for the use of CNG in the United States, and the inevitable fracturing of the domestic fuel market into something closer to what's seen in other parts of the world. In South America and Southeast Asia, millions of cars already run on CNG. Other countries, such as Turkey, Italy and Sweden, have tens of thousands of CNG-powered vehicles, with varying amounts of refueling stations. The benefits of CNG are pretty clear—it burns cleaner than gas, producing some 30 percent less in emissions, and it tends to be cheaper. Also, we get some 80 percent of our CNG domestically. The exact cost of CNG can vary from country to country, or even state to state, but according to the Department of Energy's most recent estimate, in October of 2009 the national average for gasoline was $2.64 per gallon, and the range equivalent for CNG was $1.86.

For the average driver, logistics trump price, and the relative lack of CNG refueling stations in the United States has made the fuel a nonstarter. Honda has been producing the country's only CNG vehicle, the Civic GX, since 1998, but only to customers in California, Utah and, more recently, New York. The result is a national fleet in the hundreds, and drivers and alt-fuel activists who have interpreted Honda's rejection of would-be buyers, based on their access to fueling stations, as a full-blown conspiracy to limit CNG adoption. With its new Transit Connect engine-prep packages, Ford is avoiding any such accusations of Machiavellian handicapping, by skipping the awkward step of foisting an unfamiliar infrastructure on private consumers, and instead marketing the vehicle directly to taxi companies and state and local authorities.

"If there is a customer demand, we seek to fill it," Koss says. "In the case of CNG or LPG, it was based on customers coming up to us and asking for a solution." Last year's release of engine-prep packages for the E-Series was the result of a specific contract to help a company (Koss wouldn't name names) establish a CNG-powered service fleet. During that process, Koss traveled around the country, and in speaking to fleet operators in the private and public sector, found a strong demand for more CNG-ready vehicles. Many taxi and airport-shuttle companies, which can afford a central refueling station, have already converted some portion of their fleet to run on CNG or propane. But the tipping point for CNG—not as a successor to gas, but as a cost-effective niche fuel—could be new limits on vehicle emissions. As more taxi companies are forced to lower their average fleet emissions, CNG vehicles act as a kind of carbon offset. By making CNG more accessible, Ford could help fleet operators as well as municipal authorities who are trying to lower the overall emissions in a given city.

To be fair, a single engine-prep package isn't exactly poised to revolutionize the auto industry—Koss points out that of the millions of taxis on the road in a given year, only 6000 or 7000 are replaced with new models. But if the likes of T. Boone Pickens and other CNG proponents hope to convert all light and heavy trucks to run on the cheaper, cleaner, and less import-reliant fuel, Ford's move could be a crucial first step. "The Transit Connect Taxi with CNG is enabling the cities to move forward on their plans to change their policies and procedures, and cut emissions," says Koss. "I can't force them to change. I can only help."

 

Buck