In the early 70’s the dooms day media hype at that time was there would ABSOLUTELY be no oil left on the planet in 10 years. A few dooms day scientist dreamed it up, and the media hyped it, and it was taught in all the schools as fact.

Lots of vehicles were converted to natural gas, and Chrysler / Dodge came out with several vehicles that were natural gas powered vehicles / gasoline engines. They had dual fuel intake systems and the operator switched to the system that used whichever fuel he could get at the time.

In actual road performance, natural gas does not produce the power needed to transport goods, and gives poor performance under loads such as going up hill.

In the end, economics killed the Natural Gas powered engines. Natural gas gets around 60% of the distance a comparable energy load of gasoline gives you. Gasoline got you farther, faster and for less $$.

So when 10 years came and went and the oil wells were still pumping, Natural Gas engines became an interesting experimental footnote in history.
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Yes, there are systems designed to be connected to your home natural gas supply where a compressor will compress the natural gas from your house supply to the pressure that you need for the tanks on the car.

Contrary to what one responder said this does not bypass your gas meter and it is not illegal. In fact you work wityh your utility to connect to the natural gas supply. You are not hiding anything from them. Your utility will be very happy to work with you because that way they sell more natural gas. In fact I found out about converting my car to natural gas from the utility that provides natural gas to my home.

It does require a special building permit from the city building department, however. There are a lot of hoops that you have to jump through. However my local building department has assured me that If I am willing to jump through all of the hoops they will give me a building permit for a home refueling station for natural gas.

With respect to cost, that will vary by what your local utility charges for natural gas. My local utility charges less on an energy content basis for natural gas than I pay for gasooline with a similar energy content, But not all utilities are the same. Some charge more and others charge less.

With respect to the responder who said that LPG is $3.50 per gallon, we are not talking about LPG we are talking about natural gas from the natural gas supply to your home. Those are two very different issues. Although you can also convert to LPG if you wish, however LPG is much more expensive than natural gas.

With respect to the responder who said the natural gas tanks are dagerous because they can explode in a crash. They are no more dangerous than a standard gasoline tank in a crash.
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