Fuel gas-powered scooter

Police checking a scooter in Shanghai. Sometimes phony LPG tanks are attached to scooters to skirt the law against petrol engines.

A fuel gas-powered scooter is a scooter powered by fuel gas. Fuel gases include such fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), compressed natural gas (CNG), biogas and hydrogen (HICE). Hydrogen (hydrogen internal combustion) use in two-wheelers has only recently being started to be looked into, mainly by developing countries, to decrease local pollution at an affordable cost.

Geographical use of fuel-gas scooters and related vehicles

LPG scooters are in use in China and many parts of Southern Asia.

Incentives for using fuel gas in scooters

Fuel costs

Each different fuel comes at a different price. These prices depend on the country, and even differ between gas stations. Scooter owners may decide to use whatever fuel that is cheapest and which is also locally available.

Petrol bans in cities

Shanghai has banned petrol scooters/mopeds and only allows LPG scooters to be used in the city due to air pollution. About 190,000 gasoline mopeds were eliminated between 2001 and 2004, replaced by 140,000 LPG mopeds as of 2004, at which time the city had over 100 LPG refueling stations. In 1996 the city's 500,000 gasoline mopeds were blamed for one fifth of the air pollution in Shanghai, so in 1997 the city stopped issuing new license plates for them. In 2000, the city stopped renewing plates for existing gasoline mopeds, so all of them expired by 2008.

Low emission zones in cities

Low emission zones are present in many cities. Fuel gases such as hydrogen, CNG, LPG, ... may allow for reaching the appropriate limit to enter the city in which such LEZ's are present (depending on which European emission standard or US emission standard is being used in the LEZ).

Conversion kits for petrol scooters

Petrol-powered scooters can be fitted with a conversion kit. Conversion kits for CNG for example exist for some popular motorcycle models.

See also

• Alternative fuel vehicle
• CNG auto rickshaw
• European emission standards
• Emissions levels of scooters
• Formic acid vehicle: a type of hydrogen-based vehicle
• Emission levels of hydrogen in HICEV's
• International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies
• United States emission standards

References

• Prospective products
  • Motor Scooter Burns LPG Popular Mechanics. 276. December 1955
  • Green Management ISBN 8176488224. 2005
  • Kinetic ropes in Italy's Lovato to manufacture LPG-driven scooter Archived 2012-10-12 at the Wayback Machine (press release) 16 January 2000
  • "Indian Co Kinetic Researches Use Of Lpg For Scooter Fuel." (press release) AsiaPulse News 17 Jan. 2000: 470. General OneFile. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
  • "India: TVS-Suzuki ready with LPG scooter." (press release) Business Line 1 Sept. 2000: BSLN12636424. General OneFile. Web. 12 Apr. 2011.
  • TVS plans LPG-fuelled scooter Swati Prasad. The Indian Express. 22 July 1999
  • Bhattacharya, Sindhu (14 January 2008), "With CNG bikes TVS hopes to ride out the blues", Daily News & Analysis, New Delhi
• Existing products
  • Toms, Manu P. (2 February 2010), Auto LPG sales rise 34%, to touch 3.25 lt this fiscal; Nearly seven lakh vehicles in the country run on LPG., Mumbai, retrieved 2011-04-12{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Zuberi, N H (2006), "Use of LPG rising", Business Recorder, Use of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in motorcycle is fast increasing in the city owing to high cost of petrol. The owners of motorcycles are fast converting their vehicles on LPG, seeing government attitude to make no reduction in petrol prices although its prices have gone down considerably in international market.
  • "Polaris Sportsman 600 is converted to gas", Farmers Guardian, p. 71, 2003