Forget Electric Cars. Natural Gas Is Powering Vehicles in Texas

Forget Electric Cars. Natural Gas Is Powering Vehicles in Texas

One fleet of 24 natural-gas Fords will displace more gasoline than 700 Chevy Volts and 'save' taxpayers $5.3 million.

By Bob Lukefahr And Balu Balagopal in the Wall Street Journal

At Mike Scully's Apple Towing in Houston, just one of their big Ford F650 tow trucks saves more gasoline each year than 20 Nissan Leaf electric cars. When it comes to reducing carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants, Mike's F650s are equally impressive, and his fuel cost per mile is about the same as that of a four-seat Jeep Wrangler. What is Apple Towing's secret? The F650 tow trucks run on natural gas, which they refuel for less than $1.70 per gasoline-gallon equivalent, or gge.

PIRA Energy Group estimates that natural gas in transportation will approach 800 million gges this year. Do some simple math and it quickly becomes apparent that natural-gas vehicles (NGVs) will displace 10-12 times more gasoline and diesel than the 250,000 electric cars currently on the road. When complete, Apple Towing's small fleet of 24 natural-gas tow trucks will displace more gasoline than around 700 Chevy Volts. And here is a nice side benefit: Those Volts would cost federal taxpayers a whopping $5.3 million in subsidies while Mr. Scully's F650 Fords cost them nothing.

For more than a decade, policy makers and the automotive press have been enamored of electric vehicles, lavishing them with attention and incentives. All this even though when it comes to reducing oil dependence, pollution and fuel cost, the transition of America's truck fleet to natural gas is the hands-down winner.

Mention NGVs to a Washington policy wonk, however, and he will immediately start chattering about chickens and eggs. Received wisdom tells us that natural-gas vehicles won't sell until a huge national refueling infrastructure is built (and refueling infrastructure cannot get built without vehicles). Apple Towing's Mr. Scully, not being a poultry farmer and thus unaware of this seemingly insoluble dilemma, asked our company, Nat G Solutions, to upgrade his F650s and at the same time install a natural-gas fueling compressor in his parking lot and hook it up to his city gas line. The great infrastructure crisis disappeared.

The other solution to the infrastructure challenge lies in the new generation of multi-fuel systems found on most modern NGVs. For trucks with gasoline engines, most natural-gas upgrades allow them to run on either natural gas or gasoline. These bi-fuel vehicles are user-switchable and they automatically revert to gasoline if the compressed natural gas runs out or the system has a fault.

For diesel trucks, a new generation of retrofit systems—from companies like NGV Motori USA and Landi Renzo —allow us to upgrade the big diesel engines to run on a 60/40 blend of natural gas and diesel, which is combined in real-time inside the engine. If the compressed natural gas runs dry, the truck switches back to 100% diesel and keeps on driving. This dual-fuel approach is now opening the door for long-haul natural-gas trucking without the need for multibillion-dollar infrastructure incentives or even the need to go out and buy new tractor-trailers.

The multi-fuel approach adopted by the NGV industry means that a driver never gets stuck if he runs out of natural gas. This, combined with the more than 1,500 commercial natural gas stations expected by the end of next year and the hundreds of private fueling solutions being installed, means the chicken-and-egg question is headed back to freshmen biology where it belongs.

Ford has been leading the way in building "gas prepped" trucks—typically a $350 option—which enables any Ford-certified "qualified vehicle modifier" to install an approved natural-gas system without affecting the original power-train warranty. Nearly the entire F-series line, from F150s to F650s, is now available in a natural-gas-ready version as are the Transit and E-series work vans. GM has taken a more incremental approach, with fewer models available so far, but the industry has responded by creating aftermarket EPA-certified upgrades for nearly every GM truck and SUV on the market.

Most of this new technology remains aimed squarely at the work-truck market, exactly where it ought to be focused. This segment drives the most miles, drives the biggest vehicles, and burns the most fuel. Perhaps it is where alternative vehicle policy ought to have been focused all along. Consumer-oriented models available today (the Chevy Equinox, half-ton pickups, SUVs, and a few small sedans) will become more numerous over time. For now, however, the most sensible policy approach is to encourage companies like Apple Towing to move their big-truck fleets to natural gas and to unlock the economic and environmental benefits of America's gas boom.

Messrs. Lukefahr and Balagopal are the co-CEOs of Nat G CNG Solutions, based in Houston.