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Ford Australia Choosing Lpg Over Diesel

Ford Australia has shelved plans to introduce a diesel-powered Falcon in 2010, instead opting for a new lpg engine that it expects will account for 40 per cent of sales.

Outgoing company president Bill Osbourne said a dedicated lpg version of its new V6 engine would be ready in mid-2010.

“We are thinking lpg will account for 35 to 40 per cent of our share,” he said. “We are positioning Falcon with some new powertrain technologies that will be the lead powertrains.”

The new V6 will be sourced from the US and reworked to run on lpg at Ford Australia’s plant in Geelong.

Ford is the only Australian carmaker with a dedicated lpg engine, although Holden has said it is developing a gas-powered V6 unit for its Commodore range.

Ford’s lpg engine programme fits with technology that analysts say will further improve the fuel economy and exhaust emissions of lpg-powered cars. Known as lpg liquid injection, the technology is said to produce fuel economy for lpg cars similar to the petrol equivalent.
The imported liquid injection system JTG – Just Think Green – is being optimised for lpg-powered engines by its Melbourne-based distributor, Australian LPG Warehouse.

The e-Gas lpg Falcon uses a vapour injection system that turns the gas to vapour before injecting it into the intake manifold. But the JTG system takes the liquid right up to the injectors, which produce a droplet of liquefied gas into the intake manifold just as the engine is sucking in the air-fuel mix. The result, says the distributor, gives an LPG-powered car more power but similar fuel economy to petrol.

Picture: Ford Falcon.

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