Informed Guide to Eco-Friendly Fuels

Confused by the selection of new eco-friendly fuels? We're now being offered an increasing selection of alternative fuel types, including liquid petroleum gas (LPG), Bio-ethanol, electric and hybrid fuelled cars.  If you're keen to use a planet-friendly fuel, how do you choose?

Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) cars

Bio-ethanol fuelled cars

Electric Cars

Hybrid (electric and petrol) cars

Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG)
You can buy a new car that runs on LPG or get your petrol car converted. Cars that run on LPG cost more to buy than petrol or diesel ones, but grants may be available towards the cost of an approved conversion or buying new.

Advantages of owning a LPG car:

Cheaper fuel
The gas is around half the price of petrol or diesel, but fuel economy is 25% less. Overall, LPG works out around a third cheaper than petrol and diesel – once you've done enough miles to recoup the extra cost of the car. The higher your annual mileage, the quicker you'll recover the extra outlay. 

Lower Emissions
City driving LPG engines are cleaner than the current generation of petrol and diesel engines (pre-Euro IV), so they're ideal if you drive a lot in towns and cities, where it's important to cut down emissions.

Easy Refuelling
Refuelling with LPG is as easy as refuelling with petrol or diesel and takes the same amount of time. Like diesel and petrol, LPG is stored as a liquid, purchased by the litre and pumped into your fuel tank through a hose. You can’t accidentally add petrol or diesel to the LPG gas tank because only the LPG hose nozzle fits the car’s LPG filling point.

Quiet Ride
You get a quieter ride with LPG; noise levels are 50% less than with diesel engines.

Cheaper Road Tax
LPG vehicles also qualify for cheaper road tax.

The cars have petrol backup if you run out of LPG
Converted vehicles can be set up to run on both LPG and petrol. The petrol tank remains in the car and you can change from one fuel to the other at the flick of a switch.

Disadvantages to owning a LPG car:

You can't travel on some overseas ferries
If you're travelling by ferry, check with the operator before you book.

Higher purchase or conversion costs
LPG cars cost more and conversions are expensive, although grants are available.  Most petrol engine cars with spark ignition can be converted to LPG, but it's essential that you use a fully trained LPG specialist for the work. It costs around £1,500-£2,000 to convert a car or a light van. You can recoup this outlay quickly via lower running costs.

Bio - ethanol
Bio-ethanol is a renewable fuel derived from everyday farm crops.

Ethanol has a higher octane rating, which helps the fuel to burn faster, increasing the efficiency of an engine.

Bio-ethanol powered cars can run on bio-fuel, petrol or any combination of the two and with oil prices increasing, they’re a great alternative to diesel and petrol.

You can buy your own home units to convert vegetable oil to bio-diesel for around £1000. The fuel then costs 50p per litre to produce, which is significantly cheaper than diesel.

Where Does Ethanol Come From?
Ethanol comes from one of these three raw material groups:
starchy crops, such as corn, sugary crops, like fruit or sugarcane and cellulosic plants, such as trees or wild grasses

Benefits of bio diesel include:
Ethanol is a renewable fuel that comes from agricultural feedstocks and thus can be produced domestically.

Using ethanol (particularly E85) also results in less pollution.

Drawbacks include:
Price: Ethanol can be more expensive than petrol, depending on where you live.

Ethanol, regardless of the price you pay for it, contains less energy than petrol. This means that your car won’t go as far on a gallon of ethanol, and your fuel economy will decrease by 20-30 percent.

Limited availability 

Electric 
Electric vehicles haven't really progressed as much as they might, perhaps due to limited battery technology.   There are a few established models on the market, the leaders being Honda, Toyota and Lexus.  Electric vehicle technology is improving all the time as more models become available.

Electric vehicles are simply recharged by connecting them to any conventional wall socket.

However, most electric cars only cover around 50 miles between charges so long journeys are usually out of the question.

If you drive in the city where you rarely do more than 40mph then an electric car could be the perfect choice.

An electric car releases no emissions and is completely silent, as a result, owners don’t have to pay the London congestion fee.

Visit the UK electric vehicles information website for more information.
 
 
Hybrid
More and more hybrid cars are arriving on British roads. Hybrid vehicles combine two sources of power – a battery or LPG and conventional petrol engine. 

They are a good combination between town driving on the low emission battery or LPG and then the power and range of a petrol engine. There are a few established electric hybrid cars  the Honda Civic, Toyota Prius and a number of Lexus cars

Hybrid cars produce lower emissions and are cheaper to tax than petrol or diesel powered vehicles. In addition, they’re also exempt from London’s congestion charge.

Hybrids offer better fuel economy than petrol and diesel engines with the Toyota Prius claiming 65mpg.

If you divide your time between town and motorway and don’t require a high-performance vehicle, then a hybrid could be ideal.

On the downside, hybrids are more expensive to buy than petrol cars and you may find they're difficult to sell on.  Potential buyers may well be worried about reliability because they're technically complex.

Have Your Say

Do YOU think it's important to change over to eco-friendly fuels?  Why not share your views?  Click here to visit our forums or why not post a comment below