During my trip to Pakistan I noticed that a lot of vehicles were running on CNG. It is basically an environmentally clean alternative to petrol or diesel. Not only that; it is also very cheap and the current price of petrol in Pakistan (~KD.250/L) makes it a very viable option. It costs approximately half the price of petrol and a huge majority of cars are using it. A recent study announced Pakistan as the third largest consumer of the source behind Brazil and Argentina. A lot of cars come factory-fitted with the CNG kit and if it doesn’t, you can take it over to a shop and get it done in about 3-4 hours. Once it is done, you have a button which you can use to switch between the two sources of fuel.
Pros
- Cheap
- Cheap
- For most people there, petrol is barely affordable anymore.
- Cheap
Cons
- The cylinder takes up most of the room in the boot.
- Has a noticeable effect on the car’s performance, especially acceleration.
- Additional weight in the car due to the cylinder (approx. 50 kgs), that probably doesn’t help with performance either.
- Frequent fill-ups (one fill lasts about 90 kms) and long queues at the limited but growing CNG stations.
When I was there, my dad purchased a second car for the home; a Toyota Vitz (Yaris in Kuwait) and we took it straight to the CNG place from the showroom (below is a pic of it getting CNG-ed). By the way, the Vitz has a really cool digital dashboard (pic below).
[CNG WIKI]
Great review on the CNG installation in the Vitz. I think the car does well on CNG in terms of consumption and performance. I have had it for over a year and the car is still going strong. I once ran it for 196 Kms on one tank of CNG! (55 Kg cyl)
I have posted a review on my website as well. Take a look.
Waqar: That’s pretty impressive! My dad also got his Vitz retuned and now its doing much better and doesn’t feel as if its going to stall once the A/C is on.