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Volvo’s 10-Year Anniversary for Bi-Fuel Cars
1 March 2005
Volvo Cars (a division of Ford Motor) is in its tenth year of producing bi-fuel passenger cars. Since production of its current generation of bi-fuel engines began in 2001, Volvo has sold some 12,000 bi-fuel vehicles in Europe (7,500 powered by methane and 4,500 by LPG).
Volvo offers a five-cylinder 2.4 liter Bi-Fuel engine for its Volvo S80 (earlier post), V70 and S60 models with separate fuel systems, one for gas and another for gasoline. The engine automatically switches to the back-up gasoline power should the car’s gas supply run out.
Typically, a tank of methane will give a range of 250-300 km, and the reserve petrol tank provides an additional range of about 350 km.
Natural gas for vehicles is available in most European countries, with a total of about 2,000 public filling stations. The number is growing rapidly, especially in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. Sweden, Italy and Germany are Volvo’slargest bi-fuel markets.
A few datapoints:
In Germany, three new natural gas filling stations open every week.
Italy has some 400,000 natural gas vehicles on the road.
Growth in Switzerland is rapid, both for vehicles (+62%) and refueling stations (+80%).
Methane is usually from the earth’s crust in the form of natural gas by drilling. It can also be produced as biogas from waste sludge and biological waste.
Up to now, biogas has been produced on a small scale but interest in this cleaner fuel is growing. Sweden—Volvo’s home country—provides a good example of how biogas is produced from waste and is systematically added to the existing distribution of natural gas.
A bi-fuel Volvo driven on biogas reduces net greenhouse gas emissions by close to 100%, while driving on natural gas reduces greenhouse gas carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 25%, compared to gasoline.
March 1, 2005 in Natural Gas | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
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