Propane Autogas Update

Nov 05, 2018


I’m excited to say I’ve reached another milestone. It’s been 2 years since I put the propane autogas conversion on my personal pickup. Before I had the system installed in October of 2016 I did a fair amount of research on propane conversions for vehicles and I was confident that we had partnered with the right conversion company. I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s what I’ve found so far.  
The system in my truck starts on gasoline and then switches to propane after the engine gets a little warm, eliminating cold starting issues. Since my truck can run on propane or gasoline, on long trips I don’t need to be concerned with refueling because I know I can always get gasoline. It’s increased my range to about 950 miles before I need to refuel if I fill both tanks before I begin a trip. 
I can switch from propane to gasoline at the push of a button. If I run out of propane the system beeps at me to let me know it’s out of propane and then it switches to gasoline. It switches one cylinder at a time so it’s a seamless transition. I don’t notice any change in performance, even at highway speeds. 
The truck I purchased is a 2016 Ford F150 with a 5.0 liter V8 engine. I bought the truck in May of 2016. I have driven 66,122 miles on propane and 16,425 miles on gasoline. It was important to drive using gasoline so that I could get good solid numbers on gasoline mileage. 
My fuel savings so far are $4,515.80 or $.068 per mile. Pretty close to 7 cents per mile. The conversion cost me $5600 to install. The conversion kit will be paid off in another 16,000 miles. There is a pretty good chance that Congress will pass another alternative fuel tax credit this year. If it goes through, it will be another 37 cents per gallon off of the price of the propane. Then I will only have to drive another 5200 miles to reach my return on investment. After that, it’s money in the bank.
I plan on keeping the truck until the wheels fall off. I expect to get 300,000 miles out of the truck by the time it’s ready to be recycled. By that time I will have saved a total of approximately $20,400. After I deduct the $5600 I paid for the system, that leaves me with almost $15,000 in savings. I can buy a lot of bells and whistles on my truck with those savings (and I did). 
So who can benefit? Law enforcement, other local government fleets, school bus fleets and business fleets. Private individuals who commute to work and keep their vehicles over 100,000 miles can also see solid savings. During the last fiscal year we sold over 225,000 gallons of propane for vehicle use. 
If you’d like to know more, call your local Premier Energy office and they’ll put you in touch with Jeff Wymer, our Sales Specialist. Or give me a call. I love talking about the propane autogas. There are incentives available. Thank you for your business.

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