Alliance AutoGas Helping Marketers ‘Practice What They Preach’

In 2009, Blossman Gas led the formation of Alliance AutoGas (Asheville, N.C.), a national consortium of propane marketers, equipment providers, and certified conversion centers, to help companies add propane-fueled vehicles to their fleets. In late 2016, a new program was initiated to make its services available to all propane marketers who want to run their service and delivery vehicles on propane.

Stuart Weidie, president of Alliance AutoGas, president and CEO, Blossman Gas; and current chairman of the National Propane Gas Association, said the alliance has made an effort over the past 18 months to increase the number of vehicles it converts and services for commercial fleets. It now includes more than 60 propane marketers and about 85 service and maintenance companies with more than 200 facilities across North America. Vehicles are converted to the Prins LPG Vapor Sequential Injection system.

“That’s one of the reasons we now feel we would like to go to the propane industry for their own vehicles,” Weidie explained. “Previously we were just selling to commercial customers, but we’re now also going to be encouraging propane industry retailers and marketers to run their own vehicles on propane and use the Prins system that we provide.” Now, any propane marketer in the U.S. can use the services of Alliance AutoGas companies to purchase equipment and get their vehicles converted.

“I think it’s time our industry practices what we preach,” Weidie noted. “A good portion of our industry is not particularly positive about autogas for whatever reason, but the fuel cost savings are remarkable, because we basically have our gas cost plus whatever federal or state taxes are appropriate. You compare that to what we’re paying for gasoline and diesel at the pump — it’s a tremendous savings. We as an industry need to be realizing those potential savings but also doing our part to have vehicles out on the road that are running [with] lower emissions than the competing fuel alternatives.”

In addition to commercial fleets, the alliance has in the past made its services available for propane marketer fleets to convert their vehicles as well. But, until now, the coalition hasn’t made an effort to communicate that propane marketers can use those services. Unlike in the early days of the alliance, when only coalition members could use the services to convert their own fleets to propane, that is no longer the case.

Weidie believes that aftermarket conversions are important in developing the propane autogas market and attracting interest from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

“From Ford and GM, Toyota, and even Chrysler, we’ve got to get the volumes in the aftermarket up so they think it’s worthwhile to offer that from the factory,” he said. “The aftermarket is important to develop the U.S. marketplace and to give the OEMs confidence that they will have unit sales if they produce a vehicle that runs on propane from the factory.”

Over the past year, Alliance AutoGas has focused on expanding its service network. Weidie stresses that is important because maintaining the vehicles and servicing them if any issues should arise is important to keeping the vehicles on the road using propane.

He reflected on the alliance’s progress since Blossman and other companies formed it in 2009. At that time, Blossman Gas was talking with fleets nationwide about converting their vehicles to propane, but the company only operates in 14 states. Weidie came up with the concept of working with companies that shared Blossman’s values of treating customers well and providing those companies with everything they need to make the switch.

The alliance has expanded since then. “We have over 60 propane fuel providers who can put in dispensing equipment and provide the fuel, and our network of installation and service centers has expanded dramatically,” Weidie said. “Over the past year, we’ve been focused on expanding our service network. We’re very focused on servicing the vehicles once they have been converted or purchased, say a Roush vehicle, ensuring those vehicles stay on the road using propane, because you’ve got to be able to service them if any issues come up and do the maintenance on them. So that was the basic concept.”

The coalition continues working on its other areas of focus, such as development of engine platforms and obtaining certifications for them. The group achieved EPA certification for more than 28 vehicle platforms in 2016 and is continuing an aggressive certification program for 2017.

“We’re working to make our systems easier to convert for a ‘plug and play’ install and increasing the number of platforms that fleet customers and even people in our industry can utilize in their businesses,” Weidie noted. The alliance continues to work on certification for the Ford Transit, which he noted is the coalition’s biggest seller with fleet customers. It has received certifications for the 6.8L Ford F-450, 550, 650, and 750 platforms for 2016 and is working on the 2017 models of those vehicles. Weidie described the 6.8L as “a great system for bobtails of 2800- or 3000-gallon barrels or less for our industry. Those are two very important platforms for us.” The coalition has continued its work on law enforcement platforms that it has performed since it started out in 2009, and the group will soon start focusing its efforts on a propane-fueled Lincoln Continental, which Weidie described as “a good ‘black car limo’ platform that we think is going to have good prospects.”

Alliance is also working on a General Motors 4.3L dedicated propane direct-injection engine. Weidie explained that vehicle manufacturers are trending toward direct-injection technology as opposed to sequential injection.

“We want to stay on the cutting edge technologically,” Weidie said. “As vehicle platforms come out that run on direct-injection technology, we want to ensure we have a system, so that’s been a big part of our technology efforts in conjunction with Prins over the past several years. It’s an exciting project on the 4.3L, which can be scaled up to a 5.3L GM engine that we hope to have available over the next 12 to 18 months.” He added that the 5.3L engine is typically a good platform for service vehicles and package delivery.

The alliance is “working hard behind the scenes” on technical and engineering platform development to increase the number of propane vehicles that will meet the needs of most commercial fleet applications in the country. “We continue to make refinements, and the ability to install in a confident and professional manner without having to have an engineering degree to do it properly, and expand our network on the service side for the basic maintenance items required for the system…is what I really want to share as our primary focus right now.”

He is encouraged by the 40% month-over-month growth the alliance saw throughout 2016, and is confident that growth will continue in 2017, especially if gasoline prices continue their rise. Even if gasoline prices rise only incrementally from where they are today, that will create more opportunities as companies seek to lower their costs by using a fuel such as propane autogas that is environmentally friendly and cost-effective. Alliance AutoGas is not involved in school buses, but Weidie is pleased to see the growth in that market, even as gasoline prices declined over last couple of years.

“We still think there are a great number of companies that want to be good environmental stewards and use autogas, but we think more people will be attracted to autogas if and when the gasoline prices start to increase even if by a small amount over the next year to two years. People who are buying this technology have sustainability programs and care about the environmental benefits. It’s less of an economic sale at the moment. We think that will continue. However, we think the growth rate will accelerate if gasoline prices continue to even have a slight uptick going into the future.”

—Daryl Lubinsky