So at work we have a bunch of hemi dodge rams and i just realized that some of them are converted to run on natural gas. I havent driven one yet, does anyone know how they stack up against gasoline engines in performance and mileage?

 

I'm not sure about performance or mileage, but in general, natural gas is much less expensive than gasoline. I believe it has improved tailpipe emissions as well.

One of the drawbacks is the fact that you have a pressurized tank in the car, in the event of a collision.

 

We have them at work also. They aren't too bad on the amount of miles out of one tank. It's hard to compare since you don't fill them up per gallon.

Now, power wise, we have v6's in our F-150's so the power sucks anyways, but not bad at all.
There is a video that we have that shows how safe these things actually are. They drop a car from about five stories w/no damage to the tank. They also shoot the tank and can't puncture the tank, only dent it. Now I don't know how powerful that rifle was, but it was pretty convincing.
The only thing that makes me nervous about them, is filling them up. They make sounds that you are not used to hearing when filling up.

 

Well im working for a natural gas company so im sure its especially cheap to fill them, probably sort of a PR helper too.

No one knows about their performance?

 

you lose about 15% power and about 10% economy gallon for gallon, however the natural gas is cheaper (about 50% cheaper here), so that offsets the loss on fuel economy. As for safety, the fuel cells are far more robust than a fuel tank, and very very unlikely to rupture. In anycase, a fire in the fuel tank is a flash fire....I will dig out the vid somewhere....

 

If it's anything like the propane powered cars we had at work they will be junk in no time soon. After a few months they wouldn't stay running or would sputter along. Constantly in the shop so the city removed them from our dept (Police) and put them in other dept's where they weren't being run 24/7. Although I'm not sure if using them 24/7 had anything to do with the problems. Dallas PD did the same thing several months ago and pulled them out of the fleet recently for the same problems.

 

The conversion to LPG is so expensive that you need to be driving your car A LOT just to make it worth the money.
There's a company in Germany just 120 miles away from my place who does such conversions for S197 Mustangs, but the whole kit+installation costs EUR 5,000 ($ 6,400)!!! In my case, driving 15,000 miles/year is not enough to make me cosinder the switch. Oh, and the power loss is also something I couldn't live with.
Maybe for those owners of S197s who aren't that interested in the car's power yet they do drive it a lot, it could be an interesting option.

 

that is a lot! The companies here do a V8 conversion for £2100 ($3800). SOmeone is making a lot of money out if mustang drivers!

I was going to go with the swap, it owuld have paid me back in 18 months, then I realised that in all probability, I wouldn't be keeping the car that long.