Diesel vs. Natural Gas

Gotta pick your battles ... I see lng or cng more useful for local work or more so local light duty work. Ups delivery trucks and others like it. For class 8 trucks? I don't see it as a viable option. Even if diesel costs a bit more to run, can the lng engine live nearly as long? What is the purchase price? And who fixes it when it breaks down? The tried, tested and true will win out for my operation.

 

I have. But they aren't cost effective. The operators of such trucks are large companies getting nice big federal grants to cover the added expense.

The lobbyists of the nice friendly environmental Nazis have convinced our government that it's ok to take more money from us to pay for the agenda they want pushed.

 

Here is a natural gas truck with a sleeper.



I have driven it for a couple of days over the last year. It runs similar to a diesel but yet does not react like a diesel does. There is a slight lag on the throttle to acceleration on it. I would pick a diesel of ng simply because when the tank on a diesel reads e you're done. When the tank reads somewhere between E and 1/4 your done on a ng truck.

 

When truckdrivers take a 10 hour break every 80-100 miles.

 

2 year lng truck review
Pete day cab running lng only

1)Horrible mpg (4.3 to 4.9mpg)
2)Horrible life of tank (280 to 300miles)
3No balls, have to constantly downshift going down i35 in Texas with the slightest incline.
4) Constantly in shop. Most of the time don't even make it to next b service before it's gotta be towed.
5) Better get on the gas taking off or it's going to die( they got about 200k miles and clutches are right around the corner
6) When it gets cold(Texas cold lol) half of em got to get jumped off cause the starter has to turn a lot faster for the gas motor to start and the 4 batteries just don't cut it when it's freezing.
7)only have 6 locations to fuel and our network and some are far and few in between
8) fuel pump goes down weekly with all the safety junk on it and a tech has to come out and get it going( you will be stuck at a lot of the locations cause of the 280 fo 300 per tank. Techs come from Dallas. Sucks when you are in Waco
9) no fuel gauge. Some didn't work brand new and most of the rest quit working in the time past. They can't or won't fix it. We have tried. this one is funny, I've had to get towed quite a few time in the pos trucks and actually had one of the the wrecker drivers tell me that natural gas trucks are the best thing that ever happened to the wrecker buisness between em running out of gas and breaking down. Lol

I'm sure I can think of a bunch of other reasons these trucks are junk but give up for now. Only plus I have found is hardly any companies do lng so there is never a line a the fuel fuel pump. Guessing there is some stipulations with the goverment money of how long you have to run em ,cause my company refuses to admit defeat and go back to diesels. Real kicker is the company who delivers the gas to the pump runs diesels. Go figure.

 

My company has both. The cng are dogs that are lucky to get 4.5mpg. They have a lower energy density and there's only two places to fuel within 100 miles. Adds an hour or two to my day to fuel it up every day. Diesel on the other hand gets 7-8mpg, more power, and you can fuel every other day at any of the hundreds of truck stops and get your lunch. If they made more fueling stations or added cng to normal truck stops then I'd probably go for it. Cng is nice for the no idle places. Because you can idle. Other than that its a lose lose lose. Also if you get in a accident you can count on a big explosion whereas diesel burns slower.

 

Ehhh, they could make it go further but you'd have 20k in batteries alone. Wouldn't be able to haul much on top of that. Interestingly some of the first trucks were electronic.

 

One of our drivers has been limping a cng truck around town at 50% power for weeks. Keep bringing it to the dealership and they can't figure it out. Diesel engines are a know quantity that can be fixed or repaired comparatively easily. Cng even needs a special oil so if you run low on the road you're screwed unless you get really lucky at the truck stop.

 

I've wondered that as well. Probably too much weight and cost to be feasible. But it would make things much more efficient. I wonder if 10+mpg would be the norm with that kind of setup.

 

I never got why they don't change the way they measure the tank. If the truck stops running at 1/4 why not just say that's empty?