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25 years ago in the UK, leaded petrol was being phased out but still pretty common. The UK Government was giving people grants to have existing cars converted t

25 years ago in the UK, leaded petrol was being phased out but still pretty common. The UK Government was giving people grants to have existing cars converted to run on LPG, so they'd only run on a coke can of petrol for a minute or so on startup then switch over to gas. Catalytic converters? Don't need 'em! There's no CO or unburnt fuel in the exhaust to catalyse because they run as lean as a vegan's dog! CO2 emissions? Sure, but the stuff is getting flared off as waste at refineries anyway, and we're not going to stop making plastics and fertilisers any time soon, so may as well extract useful work from burning it! We could have had incredibly clean cities everywhere by now, by simply keeping older cars on the road and adapting them to run on much cleaner safer fuel. But there was a problem, an absolute bombshell of a problem. The fatal flaw that killed LPG as a road fuel. It didn't sell new cars. It didn't sell anyone any debt. So they came up with "scrappage schemes" where you'd get a couple of hundred quid for your old car, it would get destroyed, and then all you had to do was buy a nice new Cleaner Greener Diesel car instead, at some swingeing rate of interest (expect to pay well over twice the sticker price by the end of it - and no, you didn't get the Scrappage Scheme cash if you didn't take the finance package). And you see how well that worked out.

bluGill 3mo ago
LPG had the same problem as electric cars. In the early years there was no infrastructure and so if you buy one you're an early adopter and you can't actually go anywhere. It took a while to get that infrastructure and now electric cars are useful for most trips. You can use LPG cars to go for most trips in the US even today. However, you better plan ahead because finding a place of fuel is going to require some effort. I had a few LNG stations near me, but they seem to have all been torn out, meaning that never made it. Gas cars faced the same thing when they first came out but by the time they became used for longer trips there was gas everywhere and in the meantime there was gas at least where you bought the car and so it was good enough for the short trips that bought it for.
- ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
  That was kind of it. Until maybe five years ago, every branch of Morrison's had two LPG pumps at their petrol stations, as did Asda. Now it's mostly wholesale fuel suppliers that have pumps.
- wolvoleo 3mo ago
  LPG was really popular in Holland, that wasn't the problem. You could get it everywhere. It was cheap too. There were just some artificial issues: - The government didn't want LPG owners to be cheaper off (it was much cheaper per kilometer) so they raised road tax substantially making it only economical if you drove a lot - There were no cars running on LPG off factory. You always had to deal with an aftermarket install with a big tank that took up half your trunk. It didn't replace the original tank because that was needed for starting, though part of it could have been replaced by LPG storage. After all you didn't need 80 litres of it. They didn't do that however. Some cars had donut tanks installed (for the LPG) that fit in the spare wheel space but they were tiny and you had to fill up constantly. - Engine performance was significantly reduced on LPG. - The tanks were pressurised which were a bit dangerous and didn't store a lot of mileage for the space. You couldn't fill them up 100% either. High pressure vessels and high energy collisions don't go well together. You can design around that but because the only options were aftermarket the cars were never designed with this in mind. - After fuelling the hose was pressurised and when you released it it blew a whole bunch of gas in your face. Yuck. I used to kick the release lever from a distance but it didn't really help. We had one for a while but it was kinda a clumsy affair. Lack of places to fill up was however not a problem at all. Despite all the artificially created barriers it was still a common choice for the high mileage driver in the 90s and early 2000s. I don't think it's really a thing anymore. EVs have taken over this space. It was never a great solution anyway as it's still a fossil fuel causing CO2 release. It was never really going to be a permanent solution.
  - ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
    Engine performance is actually increased on LPG if you do it properly. It's less energy dense, so you use more of it, but you get a bigger slower bang, giving you more torque. You need the timing a bit different. The tanks are far safer than the leaky plastic yoghurt pots that people carry petrol around in under their cars. They can't explode, they can't be ripped open, they can't even be dented. I have attempted to knock a hole in one with a 16-tonne excavator and only succeeded in squashing it a little bit. I've taken LPG tanks out of burnt-out taxis that were still half-full. They're not even under any pressure, they're at 8 bar or so. The main danger if the gas gets out is that it's really really cold! It's still a fossil fuel causing CO2 release but it's a fossil fuel that would just be burnt in a flare stack if you didn't burn it in a car. No-one is going to stop making propane, as long as we make plastics and fertilisers.
pjc50 3mo ago
LPG and CNG had a consistent niche, but they weren't transformative and ended up not being significantly cheaper either. And recently we saw the problem with natural gas supply availability. With EVs, all of this goes away and you can charge at home, including off your own solar panels. The technology has finally got to a tipping point, thanks to a couple of decades of phone batteries. > you didn't get the Scrappage Scheme cash if you didn't take the finance package [Citation needed] .. but yeah the scrappage schemes (various) were of dubious value and something of a bung to the motor industry and to quieten opposition to things like the LEZ.
- ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
  Even down south here at 56°N I'd need a set of solar panels about 100m x 100m to charge even a very small car in less than a day.

bluGill 3mo ago

LPG had the same problem as electric cars. In the early years there was no infrastructure and so if you buy one you're an early adopter and you can't actually go anywhere. It took a while to get that infrastructure and now electric cars are useful for most trips. You can use LPG cars to go for most trips in the US even today. However, you better plan ahead because finding a place of fuel is going to require some effort. I had a few LNG stations near me, but they seem to have all been torn out, meaning that never made it. Gas cars faced the same thing when they first came out but by the time they became used for longer trips there was gas everywhere and in the meantime there was gas at least where you bought the car and so it was good enough for the short trips that bought it for.

ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
That was kind of it. Until maybe five years ago, every branch of Morrison's had two LPG pumps at their petrol stations, as did Asda. Now it's mostly wholesale fuel suppliers that have pumps.
wolvoleo 3mo ago
LPG was really popular in Holland, that wasn't the problem. You could get it everywhere. It was cheap too. There were just some artificial issues: - The government didn't want LPG owners to be cheaper off (it was much cheaper per kilometer) so they raised road tax substantially making it only economical if you drove a lot - There were no cars running on LPG off factory. You always had to deal with an aftermarket install with a big tank that took up half your trunk. It didn't replace the original tank because that was needed for starting, though part of it could have been replaced by LPG storage. After all you didn't need 80 litres of it. They didn't do that however. Some cars had donut tanks installed (for the LPG) that fit in the spare wheel space but they were tiny and you had to fill up constantly. - Engine performance was significantly reduced on LPG. - The tanks were pressurised which were a bit dangerous and didn't store a lot of mileage for the space. You couldn't fill them up 100% either. High pressure vessels and high energy collisions don't go well together. You can design around that but because the only options were aftermarket the cars were never designed with this in mind. - After fuelling the hose was pressurised and when you released it it blew a whole bunch of gas in your face. Yuck. I used to kick the release lever from a distance but it didn't really help. We had one for a while but it was kinda a clumsy affair. Lack of places to fill up was however not a problem at all. Despite all the artificially created barriers it was still a common choice for the high mileage driver in the 90s and early 2000s. I don't think it's really a thing anymore. EVs have taken over this space. It was never a great solution anyway as it's still a fossil fuel causing CO2 release. It was never really going to be a permanent solution.
- ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
  Engine performance is actually increased on LPG if you do it properly. It's less energy dense, so you use more of it, but you get a bigger slower bang, giving you more torque. You need the timing a bit different. The tanks are far safer than the leaky plastic yoghurt pots that people carry petrol around in under their cars. They can't explode, they can't be ripped open, they can't even be dented. I have attempted to knock a hole in one with a 16-tonne excavator and only succeeded in squashing it a little bit. I've taken LPG tanks out of burnt-out taxis that were still half-full. They're not even under any pressure, they're at 8 bar or so. The main danger if the gas gets out is that it's really really cold! It's still a fossil fuel causing CO2 release but it's a fossil fuel that would just be burnt in a flare stack if you didn't burn it in a car. No-one is going to stop making propane, as long as we make plastics and fertilisers.

pjc50 3mo ago

LPG and CNG had a consistent niche, but they weren't transformative and ended up not being significantly cheaper either. And recently we saw the problem with natural gas supply availability. With EVs, all of this goes away and you can charge at home, including off your own solar panels. The technology has finally got to a tipping point, thanks to a couple of decades of phone batteries. > you didn't get the Scrappage Scheme cash if you didn't take the finance package [Citation needed] .. but yeah the scrappage schemes (various) were of dubious value and something of a bung to the motor industry and to quieten opposition to things like the LEZ.

ErroneousBosh 3mo ago
Even down south here at 56°N I'd need a set of solar panels about 100m x 100m to charge even a very small car in less than a day.