Isn’t CNG pretty new technology? Shouldn’t we wait till it gets figured out better?
Natural gas was used as fuel in the first internal combustion engines as engines were being developed in the early 1800’s. Engineers also used gasoline, hydrogen, and propane in early engines. CNG in its modern form has been around for decades and started gaining renewed interest in the 1970’s. Adoption was slow due to low power and range of early vehicles. However, as technology has improved adoption in countries across South America, Asia, and New Zealand began to pick up in the 1990’s. Current bi-fuel (gasoline or CNG) vehicles have minimal power loss compared to gasoline and similar range and dedicated fuel CNG engines have similar power and efficiency to gas or diesel engines. The technology is well proven at this stage. More locally, the public transit system in the Roaring Fork area has put over 2 million miles on CNG buses and reports similar power to their diesel buses, and increased efficiency and less overall maintenance costs.

Show All Answers

1. What about electric vehicles?
2. Why not go electric?
3. What is the cost?
4. Can vehicles be converted to CNG?
5. What is the Environmental Impact?
6. Are CNG vehicles safe?
7. Isn’t CNG pretty new technology? Shouldn’t we wait till it gets figured out better?
8. Link to Colorado Energy Office FAQ’s