Oregon inventer hopes to wow auto world with natural gas car

The Daily News ^ | Sep 03, 2006 - 10:59:17 pm | AP

[pabianice]

Inside the box is a machine that compresses natural gas. Owners of the American Roadster will connect the compressor to their natural gas line and use it to fuel the car. It takes about 4 1/2 hours to fill the two eight-gallon canisters behind the back seat.

They should name it The Flying Turkey. Another EcoFreak loser.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Nothing new. Companies have used propane fueled autos and forklifts for years.

[rawhide]

Where's the headlight?

[patriot_wes]

"Shale oil may be nearly unlimited in quantity and it may be right here in the US, but extremely cheap it is not. There's a very good reason why we haven't used it yet. It costs too darn much to get out of the ground. Maybe it will be cheap in the future when our extraction technology gets better, but it's not right now."

NOT!

http://www.rexresearch.com/karrick/karric~1.htm

http://www.tomvalentine.com/html/karrick2.html

[MrEdd]

Optionally on the fenders or nose mounted like this:

[elmer fudd]

It's been done before, (mostly by countries that had no other options, ie. Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and apartheid era South Africa), and in most cases was abandoned very quickly because it was not cost competitive. It's still not. That, and the fact that it's an environmental nightmare, is why it's still not in widespread use. Heck, if it were at all profitable China, with it's massive coal reserves and scant supplies of oil, would be all over it.

The patents are mostly expired now and the process is well understood. If there really is any money in it you should get together a group of investors. With the world demand for oil you'll be the next Bill Gates.

[rawhide]

Do you sit in this 'car' like in a regular car seat, or ride it like on a motorcycle?

[Salvation]

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[Clinging Bitterly]

This was in our local paper a couple months ago.
A nice, economical CNG car might be practical, the gas is plentiful and cheap and the potential supply is vast (if the government would step out of the way), but a three wheeler isn't safe.

A better seller I think would be to kit a selection of existing vehicles to run on CNG. There are already fleets owned by large companies and government agencies that run on the stuff, it works. Joe blow doesn't have it because there aren't CNG stations on every corner or even in every town.

But I don't think the stuff you would need to tank up 20 gallons of it in four hours would fit in a lunch box, so there's a hint of snake oil here. We'll see - I could be wrong.

Oh yeah if use of NG as an on highway motor fuel expanded beyond negligible levels, you can bet your ass governments will tax it.