Autogas – Fuel of the Future
If you spend a good deal of time driving and fill up your car with petrol once or twice a week,
you should consider switching from petrol to LPG (Autogas). There are around half a million Australian cars running on LPG with 44,000new and converted cars coming on the roadin the past two years. Holden sells an LPG Autogas Commodore and Ford has a Falcon EcoLPi.
What is the main attraction of LPG (Autogas)
It is hard to go past the price. “Typically LPG Autogas is around half the cost of unleaded petrol at over 3700 service stations across Australia,” says Michael Carmody, CEO of Gas Energy Australia. “It was the lowest-priced fuel throughout 2012 and is still the most affordable at the pump.”
The catch is you need a special LPG tank. You can have one fitted to your existing car or buy a new car already with LPG. The cost of converting your car is typically $3000, says Carmody. Almost all unleaded petrol-fuelled vehicles can be converted to LPG. Accord ing to AusIndustry, LPG systems typically
range in price from about $2500 to $4500 installed, depending on the sort of vehicle, type of system and operation.
The good news is that, until June 30, 2014, there are incentives for choosing LPG AutoGas. There
is a $1000 government grant towards converting an existing registered car and, if you buy a new car from Ford or Holden already fitted with LPG, you can receive $2000.
The grants are administered by AusIndustry under the Department of Industry,Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education. The applications are processed by the Department of Human Services. See
www.ausindustry.gov.au for the customer guidelines.
There are other reasons for converting to LPG. It wasn’t so long ago that drivers couldn’t go for extensive drives on a single tank of LPG but that has changed. Car manufacturers such as Holden have developed a distance range similar to petrol-fuelled cars.
Holden’s Omega LPG sedan can travel up to 710 kilometres on a single tank.
LPG tanks used to take up most of the boot – remember the boot of taxis? But new LPG cars are setting the tanks underneath the floor of the boot so you have plenty of storage. However the spare tyre is displaced.
“Modern LPG Autogas tanks are very small and leave you plenty of boot space for prams, shopping and pretty much anything else you can think of,” says Carmody. “And if you don’t want to lose any boot space at all, a donut-style tank may be able to be fitted in your spare wheel well.”
It is hard to go past the environmental benefits of driving with LPG. Carbon emissions are about 15% lower with LPG than for petrol. LPG fuel doesn’t contain acids, or leave
carbon deposits behind in your engine like petrol does and it can actually increase the life of the engine, says Carmody.
Just how much will you save with LPG?
This depends on installation costs and how far you drive each week. Autogas says a family driving a new Ford Territory 400 kilometres each week would cut their fuel bill by around $1200 a year. They could recoup the conversion cost in a year and a half. If you drive 1000 kilometres each week, you could be paying $70 for LPG, much less than the $113 for unleaded fuel. Over the year you could save $2205.
There will be slight increases in the price of LPG to bring it in line with the fuel excise. From July 1 this year the fuel excise will be 7.5¢ a litre, rising to the full rate of 12.5¢ a litre from July 1, 2015
