Evidence of meeting #26 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vehicle.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
—unless you have an optional larger gasoline tank, when it may be up to the 500-mile range.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Do you mean you can fill up this Ram with both natural gas and gasoline at the same time?
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
Yes. Well....
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Okay.
However, you don't need both fuels in it at the same time for it to function, do you?
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
Yes, you do.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You do?
The reason for my question is that this home fill-up option that we heard of at our last hearing presents consumers with the ability to fill up at home, but that only works if they are returning home the same day. If they're going on a road trip, for example, and there don't happen to be stations along the way, how do they then refill their vehicle?
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
Understand that the initial market for this vehicle would be fleets that have dedicated routing, with central refuelling or whatever. They have a defined range. The concept of only adding a partial range of gasoline is to encourage the use of the natural gas on that vehicle, maximizing the natural gas tank volume to provide that customer the ability to reap the benefits of natural gas use. Gasoline is there for range anxiety; you give it to give some range.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I get it.
I'm interested in this because I believe that it will be an attractive option for consumers, given the price disparity between natural gas and gasoline. There is the possibility now to fill up a car at night at home in your garage or your driveway and then drive at a significant discount to the cost of gasoline, except that every family wants to take a road trip at some point in time and there aren't enough natural gas stations to refuel with. Obviously they're not returning home to fill up, so do you see the technology moving in a way that will allow them to substitute gasoline on occasions when it's not possible to power up with natural gas?
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
Yes, with this particular technology you can have that gasoline. In Canada we've decided to allow for a larger gasoline tank, because the infrastructure for natural gas has diminished over the last few years.
As we build the knowledge, rebuild the infrastructure, and look at different vehicles, those options will be looked at to allow consumers support so as not to run out of fuel on the road, if they're anxious about that. You can run on gasoline and diesel—I'm sorry, I mean gasoline and—
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You can run out of gas, but you are saying you must have natural gas at the same time.
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
It's actually the other way around. You must have gasoline.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I see. It's possible, then, for a consumer to run their CNG vehicle on gasoline alone.
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
The vehicle is designed right now to start on gasoline, and then it operates on CNG exclusively.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I'm sorry, but we're very tight on time. If there's no CNG in the vehicle—
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
—it will run on gasoline.
Manager, Vehicle Environmental and Energy Programs, Engineering and Regulatory Affairs, Chrysler Canada Inc.
Yes.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
With that, I will thank our guests today. We certainly appreciate your time and your effort to be here today. I'm sure you will see some of these show up in our report at a later date.
Thank you very much.
Managing Director and Executive Vice-President, Business Development, Fleet Advantage Inc.
Wonderful. Thank you....
Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director, AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence, Auto21 Inc.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Merv Tweed
For the information of the committee, over the next couple of days I will be sending you an itinerary for the next six to eight meetings and a list of the guests that we've invited. Some haven't confirmed yet, but we have them on the list. I ask you to look at that. If there are any other suggestions, let me know.
Have a good weekend.
The meeting is adjourned.