Say bi-fuel to some motorists and they will probably look confused and tell you to go and buy your own fuel. They, like most of us, are probably blissfully unaware that Volvo has a bi-fuel range of cars on the Irish market. Andrew Hamilton reports
Their other fuel is LPG, otherwise liquefied petroleum gas
All the gas-powered models are built at Volvo's own factories and have full warranties, unlike aftermarket jobs.
We have just been driving the 1.8 litre S40 bi-fuel which retails here at €28,310 ex- works - this compares with €26,290 for the similar petrol only model.
What did we find? An extra gauge on the dashboard and "proper" switches rather than tacky add-on bulbs and dials.
The gas filler is housed neatly inside the standard fuel flap. There's a sacrifice of some boot space for the extra LPG tank, but at least it's hidden under the floor.
Transferring between gas and petrol power is as simple as pushing a button on the dashboard, and the small drop in performance is barely noticeable. The only problem we encountered was a reluctance to start from cold when running on LPG.
Readers of our Help Desk last week will have come across the query from a reader who was a "reasonably" long-distance motorist and wondered if LPG was worthwhile. Unfortunately some erroneous information was given.
The Irish LPG Association, through its spokesman Fergus Finlay, was quoted as saying that LPG with a retail price of 45.65 cents per litre was half the price of petrol.
He now admits that this information was wrong, that the figure quoted actually related to pence per litre rather than cents per litre.
"This figure would translate into 57.9 cents a litre which is the recommended retail price."
Ford has been assessing bi-fuel (petrol and LPG) in a Ford Focus is not convinced about its efficacy.
The lower mpg returns offset the advantage, according to its spokesman. LPG needed a fiscal incentive from Government.
Our S40 returned 35 mpg overall but on LPG this figure fell to 26 mpg.
This leads us to believe that, unless the mileages are really huge, the saving in the pocket has to be minimal.