CNG Drive on Natural Gas

CNG News

Another 1,000 CNG Transcab Taxis will soon be coming on Singapore's roads - equipment supplied by cng.com.sg

C. Melchers has been awarded to provide Transcab with 1,000 OMVL kits and Xperion Cylinders for the conversion of their new 1000 Toyota Wish to become CNG bi-fuel taxis.

Transcab is a subsidiary of the Union Group, incorporated in April 2003, granted in 2004 their Taxi Operation License (TOL) and the launch date was 17th January 2005 with a fleet of 50 cars. Transcab has a fleet of 2,600 vehicles. They have some 1,000 taxis running on CNG and intend to increase this number by another 3,000 units in the next one or one-and-half-years.

For the conversion, there are two main parts needed. One part consists out of a kit including an ECU, injector rail, regulator and the fuel switch and the other major part is the cylinder as a “tank”. The kits are from an Italian leading manufacturer, called OMVL. The cylinders are delivered in two sizes from a German manufacturer called Xperion and are both installed in the vehicle. The two cylinders have a total capacity of 129 liters, which can be filled up with approximately 22 kg of gas and are separated into two cylinders, a 90 liter and 39 liter cylinder. This amount of gas has an average mileage of 280 km.

These type IV cylinders from Xperion are very light due to their carbonfiber design. For comparison, a normal type I (Steel) cylinder (90litre) has a weight of 95kg (empty weight) and the equivalent size from Xperion weighs only 30kg.

The almost 70% savings in weight result in:

 

Taxi drivers are demanding drivers. The systems supplied by C. Melchers GmbH & Co. have proven to be very reliable.

These 1,000 new CNG taxis will increase the total amount of CNG cars in Singapore to over 5,500. That means over 10% of all taxis in Singapore are running on CNG. If we follow this trend, we help Singapore to become a more environmentally friendly place for everybody.

Contact www.cng.com.sg for more information.