Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has completed three years of operation of ten vehicles for the Federal Methanol Fleet Project; five of the vehicles are fueled with methanol. Nearly 74,000 miles were accumulated on the ten vehicles during the third year, bringing the total for three years to over 280,000 miles. The five gasoline cars in the project at Berkeley have been retired from service by the General Services Administration, but the five methanol cars will continue to be monitored. Recent emissions tests of the methanol cars revealed higher emissions than when the cars were originally tested in 1985, and evidence suggests that there has been some deterioration of emissions control by the catalytic converters. Rates of accumulation of wear metals in the lubricating oil of the methanol engines improved during the third year; only iron remains appreciably elevated in the oil when compared to that of the gasoline engines. Drivers continued to express a high degree of satisfaction with the performance of the methanol cars as compared to that of the gasoline cars. 6 refs., 13 tabs.


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    Title :

    Results from the Third Year of Operation of the Federal Methanol Fleet at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory


    Contributors:
    R. N. McGill (author) / B. H. West (author) / S. L. Hillis (author) / J. W. Hodgson (author)

    Publication date :

    1989


    Size :

    29 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    First Year Results from the Federal Methanol Fleet at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

    Wantland, J. L. / McGill, R. N. / Hillis, S. L. | SAE Technical Papers | 1987


    First year results from the federal methanol fleet at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

    McGill,R.N. / Hillis,S.L. / Wantland,J.L. et al. | Automotive engineering | 1987