Does modifying a car to use LPG a good idea?
By MUNGAI KIHANYA
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
22 January 2023
In the last few
years, some Kenyan motorists have modified their petrol cars to run on
liquified petroleum gas (LPG). The modification costs Sh55,000 and the
LPG goes for Sh89 per litre. This is much heaper than the Sh162 price of
petrol in Nairobi. But are the savings worth it?
If we do a direct
comparison, the saving on fuel cost is Sh73 per litre. Therefor, to
recover the Sh55,000 installation cost, one needs to consume about 750
litres of LPG. How many kilometres will that take and how much time is
needed?
This depends of the
type of car and the motoring habit of the owner. The typical 1,500cc car
consumes petrol at the rate of between 10km/L and 15km/L. This is an
average of about 12.5km/L. Thus, such a car would have to run for about
12.5 x 750 = 9,375km before recovering the installation cost of the LPG
system. This is approximately two service intervals.
If the car is driven
for, say, 50km daily, then it would take 9,375/50 = 187 days to recover
the cost of the LPG system. That is, about six months. But we have
assumed that the car will consume LPG at the same rate as petrol
12.5km/L. This is not the case.
The LPG consumption
rate is about 20 per cent higher that that of petrol. So, in our
example, the car consumes 4L of petrol per day. If it is modified to use
LPG, it will run at about 10km/L. Therefore, it will need 5L of LPG
daily.
At the price of
Sh162/L, the 4L of petrol costs Sh648; and at Sh89/L, 5L of LPG costs
Sh445. The daily saving is Sh203. Thus, it would take about 270 days 9
months to recover the Sh55,000 LPG modification charge.
From a financial
consideration only, this LPG modification is a good idea. Its greatest
challenge, however, is that there are less than a handful of filling
stations. It is not uncommon for drivers to queue for many hours waiting
for their turn to fill-up. Luckily, the car can still use petrol, but
this means that the motorist will not be using LPG on a daily basis.
He may use it on just
a quarter of the time; in which case the recovery period goes up to
about 3 years. Are you willing to wait that long?
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