FFD braved the snow (and public transport) to go and drive Merc's compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered Sprinter at the manufacturer's base in Milton Keynes.
So, what makes Merc's NGT (this stands for Natural Gas Technology by the way) Sprinter any better than the other gas-powered vehicles before it? Well, for starters there's no appreciable difference...and that's a good thing because once behind the wheel there's virtually no difference in power, noise and operation. Great!
Then where do I fill it up after it's run out of gas at the end of the road? Well the good news is is that it comes fitted with three big tanks (six, if you decide to move the spare wheel into the load area), which provides up to about 200 miles and that's excluding the use of the petrol tank.
We could go into how much cheaper CNG is (compared with petrol and diesel) and how it can run on biomethane as well but that's boring so we'll instead tell you that when you buy the NGT Sprinter you can also purchase the refilling unit as well. This means no infrastruce problems or finding refuliing stations because you'll have it right at your doorstep.
Merc says that the price of the unit (rumoured to be around £4000) can be built into your monthly contract-hire price -- almost like adding on international roaming or MMS to your mobile phone contract.
But is CNG the panacea that fleet operators the world over are looking for to solve their emissions/fuel consumption etc problems? Well, no. Not entirely. Mercedes reckons that there will be several different technologies making-up fleets of the future so battery-powered vans will serve one sector like urban deliveries and diesel will cover the journeys and CNG will cover the middle bit in between. Let's not forget hybrids and fuel-cells but more on that in future.
Well done to all involved with this trial.
CNG and BNG will be the big winner when the dust settles and the EU white paper on the future of transport arrives in the second semester 2010.
Mercedes has been smart to get all the horses into the stable before anyone else "so to speak".
A indépendant filling device is a cracking idea....
Regards
I think the on-site filling station is a good dea, especially if you get the additional storage tank that fills while you're out about. It's not like an electric vehicle where you need to budget your range (then have to wait 6 hours for it to recharge).
Also with the petrol engine you'll never run out of juice. I don't that this will be the solution, it'll most likely be a cog in the wheel of our future fuel solutions.