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Thread: Considering lpg conversion on V8

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    Default Considering lpg conversion on V8

    I have a fairlane V8 and i am currently looking at the possibility of converting it to gas.
    Looking at the petrol prices generally around 2.20 per L and the fuel excise tax being put back in a couple of months i expect that to sky rocket to near $3 per L
    Gas is at $1.09 per L so it is back to being very economical again.

    Last time i checked the price on conversion i was told about $4k for conversion. I was looking at vehicles that are already converted on car sales and they are up around the 10 - 15k mark (this is a surprise to me considering they are older cars around the 2007 - 2013 mark. one car i saw was a 2013 falcon for $27k.
    anything reasonable price has ludicrously high mileage and usually something wrong with it.

    I have been considering an electric car however i am not willing to take out a loan to buy one with interest rates on the rise so would be better to put money aside to buy one when they come down in price and become more readily available.

    So looking at getting the fairlane Converted to LPG.

    Is there anything i should consider or look out for when i do this?



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    I just bought from a little old lady for my daughter a little 323 manual with 170k km on the clock and it's a little ripper. I've been driving it around and it seems very economical. I'm sure gas in time will go up in price as well but you also have to look at availability. Many servos just don't sell gas anymore.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LeroyPatrol View Post
    I just bought from a little old lady for my daughter a little 323 manual with 170k km on the clock and it's a little ripper. I've been driving it around and it seems very economical. I'm sure gas in time will go up in price as well but you also have to look at availability. Many servos just don't sell gas anymore.
    I know a lot of fuel stations are not getting there tanks retested however given there are gas only vehicles kicking around surely there would be ways of getting it?

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    Auto-LPG is a dead end ; it has more use/worth as a commercial/industrial fuel for things like electrical power generation.

    I'd 'hard-park' the Fairlane for some future day when the car accrues worth as a collector's vehicle ~ in the meantime, buy something newer/more fuel efficient =)

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    Quote Originally Posted by wotnot View Post


    Auto-LPG is a dead end ; it has more use/worth as a commercial/industrial fuel for things like electrical power generation.

    I'd 'hard-park' the Fairlane for some future day when the car accrues worth as a collector's vehicle ~ in the meantime, buy something newer/more fuel efficient =)
    I have not seen Shell with autogas for a long time however there are other fuel stations that provide it. Shell branded it autogas and is the mentioned joint venture other stations use unigas and going by their website they don't indicate they are terminating their network.

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    ok Spoke to Elgas - they operate the unigas brand. They are also decommissioning the brand. They mentioned they are decommissioning the brand not the network itself. the infrastructure is being sold to the existing fuel stations to be managed locally. These fuel stations will continue to sell gas and elgas will only take on the supply of the gas rather than the management of the network. They also said there is still a high demand for gas.

    It also seems that many BP stations also sell auto gas around where i live too.

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    Worldwide, auto-lpg (aka. 'autogas') is being phased out, and that includes AU ; in the UK, BP is removing all their domestic autogas refilling facilities by 2025. Here in AU, all of the fuel suppliers (BP, Caltex, Shell, others) are phasing out their autogas installations ; it has nothing to do with the cost of autogas as such ; it's market demand, if only because "There are no new OEM or DOM LPG (says 4-cyl but true for 'any') cars available in Australia"...and that includes hybrids. Guess where I got that quote from?..the ElGas website...who owns 'Unigas'?...why, ElGas of course...who is the only company I could find in AU proffering the advantages of autogas?...yep, ElGas =)

    More than 60 new car models are released in AU each year, with an upturning trend towards EVs & hybrids ; none are autogas powered vehicles, and a good many cannot be coverted to autogas. They're phasing out autogas everywhere -- no demand. As the onus on countries rises wrt them hitting their global CO2 emmission targets, places like AU...where the greatest contributor to our CO2 emmissions is coal fired power generation...so moving to alternative fuel sources like LPG is where the action is..ie; ElGas might end up selling so much LPG to a gas fired power station, by pipeline, in 1 hour...that represents how much autogas for cars they sell in a week or some silly business math like that =) The AU govt. removed subsidies for autogas/LPG in 2014 .....

    "Natural gas is used in our homes for heating, hot water, and cooking, but it’s also a major player in Australia’s electricity system, providing a ready source of stable and ongoing (24 hours a day / 7 days per week) power as well as secure, stable and affordable energy for our communities.

    Natural gas plays a critical role in Australia’s electricity supply. In 2019, of the 265,117-gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity generated in Australia, natural gas accounted for 21 percent. It is the second largest source of electricity generation. In that year, natural gas’ share of electricity generation equalled the contribution of all renewables (bioenergy, wind, hydro, solar and geothermal) combined.

    Around the world, natural gas as an electricity source has trended upwards for more than three decades, and is currently the number one electricity source in the world, accounting for 29 percent of OECD gross electricity production."





    The age old 'supply and demand' equation ...autogas is a dead end, mark my words 8)
    Last edited by wotnot; 04-07-22 at 05:40 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wotnot View Post
    Worldwide, auto-lpg (aka. 'autogas') is being phased out, and that includes AU ; in the UK, BP is removing all their domestic autogas refilling facilities by 2025. Here in AU, all of the fuel suppliers (BP, Caltex, Shell, others) are phasing out their autogas installations ; it has nothing to do with the cost of autogas as such ; it's market demand, if only because "There are no new OEM or DOM LPG (says 4-cyl but true for 'any') cars available in Australia"...and that includes hybrids. Guess where I got that quote from?..the ElGas website...who owns 'Unigas'?...why, ElGas of course...who is the only company I could find in AU proffering the advantages of autogas?...yep, ElGas =)

    More than 60 new car models are released in AU each year, with an upturning trend towards EVs & hybrids ; none are autogas powered vehicles, and a good many cannot be coverted to autogas. They're phasing out autogas everywhere -- no demand. As the onus on countries rises wrt them hitting their global CO2 emmission targets, places like AU...where the greatest contributor to our CO2 emmissions is coal fired power generation...so moving to alternative fuel sources like LPG is where the action is..ie; ElGas might end up selling so much LPG to a gas fired power station, by pipeline, in 1 hour...that represents how much autogas for cars they sell in a week or some silly business math like that =) The AU govt. removed subsidies for autogas/LPG in 2014 .....

    "Natural gas is used in our homes for heating, hot water, and cooking, but it’s also a major player in Australia’s electricity system, providing a ready source of stable and ongoing (24 hours a day / 7 days per week) power as well as secure, stable and affordable energy for our communities.

    Natural gas plays a critical role in Australia’s electricity supply. In 2019, of the 265,117-gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity generated in Australia, natural gas accounted for 21 percent. It is the second largest source of electricity generation. In that year, natural gas’ share of electricity generation equalled the contribution of all renewables (bioenergy, wind, hydro, solar and geothermal) combined.

    Around the world, natural gas as an electricity source has trended upwards for more than three decades, and is currently the number one electricity source in the world, accounting for 29 percent of OECD gross electricity production."





    The age old 'supply and demand' equation ...autogas is a dead end, mark my words 8)
    All fossil fuel is dead end not just autogas.
    the price of fuel is unlikely to come down and its current price is not sustainable. it is also driving up the price of hybrid and electric vehicles. for example 7 year old Nissan Leaf your looking at $27k that is ridiculous for an old car with a battery that will need replacement in the not too distant future.

    I actually spoke to Elgas and they said what i put above. so not sure why there is a discrepancy between what they told me and what you got from their website. they said they are decommissioning the brand not the hardware. the infrustructure is being taken on by the stations themselves in much the same way as the other fuel pumps and equipment in the fuel stations. The gas will still be supplied by Elgas but not branded as such.

    there are a lot of duel fuel vehicles around, the cars don't need to come from factory to support it.

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    Perhaps read this, give a better view than I can type ->

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    Quote Originally Posted by wotnot View Post
    Perhaps read this, give a better view than I can type ->
    That is a very interesting read. Its a shame their data cuts off at 2017. The big problem was the cost of gas around that time by memory gas was at the 90c/l mark and E10 at the same time was about $1.20-$1.30 meaning any cost saving was eaten up by the reduction in efficiency due too the lower energy content of lpg verse petroleum.

    however the difference between the two fuels now are much greater. E10 at $2.30 vs lpg at $1.09 makes E10 more than double and when the fuel excise tax is returned in a couple of months that would go up by another 40c/l easy if not more.

    Also just spoke to my local gas supplier about getting 45kg changed on my hot water and i asked them about gas vehicles. He has said his business is looking to get auto gas filling stations at his depots when they start to become more scarce because there will be a need for them.
    I guess it makes sense for them as a gas supplier the infrastructure costs would not be as high as he already has the majority in place already.

    his is also a smaller business (that's largely why i prefer him. would rather a local business getting my money for my household gas than a big distributor network like elgas or origin)

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    I owned gas powered cars in the past and even paid to have one car converted to lpg. I determined back then that the savings were only available whilst the cost of gas was less than 75% of petrol. Given the number of miles you needed to travel to pay for the cost of conversion before saving any money. I've given up on lpg powered cars.

    A friend of mine actually (back in the 1980s) travelled around Australia by powering his car with gas created by burning wood! He is one of these doomsayers which was why he travelled around back then. He's now in a nursing home in NSW somewhere sadly, old age has caught up with him. He also spent the last 20 odd years helping people in the Pit lands develop sustainable agriculture. for the communities. Sadly it seemed as though he was the only one passionate about it as he was having trouble convincing the locals to stay put long enough to maintain the gardens.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    According to the NRMA in 2021 total sales of autogas/LPG for road vehicles in AU represented 2% of fuel sales in this country....and falling.

    In the UK ...a 7th the size of Qld with a population of 55million...they couldn't make autogas work because of the 0.2% of cars using it...

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    Quote Originally Posted by wotnot View Post
    According to the NRMA in 2021 total sales of autogas/LPG for road vehicles in AU represented 2% of fuel sales in this country....and falling.

    In the UK ...a 7th the size of Qld with a population of 55million...they couldn't make autogas work because of the 0.2% of cars using it...
    unfortunately using data during covid does not accurately represent the sector as all the fuel sales would be going down due to lock downs and the majority of gas powered vehicles would be duel fuel. when you link that with the falling cost of fuel at the time (i saw petrol fall as low as $1 per L it made gas sales at the time uneconomical due to the lower energy density of gas vs petrol and the higher gas prices. that does not reflect what the sales of gas would be vs petrol when petrol prices are as high as they are now.

    as for the UK electric vehicles are penetrating the market in that instance due to the smaller distance between population centers.

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