Transport committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much to the committee for the opportunity, and thank you very much for your interest in looking at innovative technologies in transportation. I'm pleased to inform the committee that this year the propane industry celebrates its centennia

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the main barriers in Canada to having more self-refuelling stations, or a self-refuelling station, is regulatory and standards in nature. If you have a vehicle in Europe, you can pull up to what they call an autogas station in Europe and fill up

Transport committee  From the propane perspective, Mr. Chair, I'll have to get back to the member on the exact calculation. There are other people who will have far more of the answer than I, so I'll get back to you. In terms of making the case, it depends where you are. There's not one solution tha

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, I have no idea why we're not on the road map either. Part of it may be that someone decided just to go in one direction rather than look at propane. I'm really not sure. The fact of the matter is, and I think you're alluding to what I said earlier, that 83% of the prop

Transport committee  The industry could do more research and development. Companies such as Roush, out of Germany, are investing time and money with OEMs such as Ford to advance the use of propane. The fuel injection engine has really allowed for great advancement. When you use propane in a vehicle

Transport committee  There are two parts to your question. The first part is about the cost of conversion. The second part is about the fuelling station set-up costs. I'll give you a range for the unit cost for the cost of conversion for propane. With more volume, of course, the cost will drop as y

Transport committee  For a propane-powered vehicle, it really depends on your usage. You can recoup your initial investment in less than nine months without too much problem.

Transport committee  Let me deal with the last part. Propane is safe. Yes, mechanics will have to be properly trained on conversion, and they should be, absolutely. In terms of individual consumers moving to propane, at the end of the day it really depends on how long they're going to keep the vehic

Transport committee  Why not? It probably goes back to the OEMs, and part of the challenge is infrastructure. People are comfortable with gasoline. We have a culture that's comfortable with it. We have auto manufacturers who know it. We have a sophisticated distribution system. We have gas stations

Transport committee  Yes, it's a simple process. You take it off the pump, you put it in the part of the car that requires the fuel, and you hold it there. There are built-in valves and mechanisms that shut off the propane when it's full, which for any propane container is no more than 80%.

Transport committee  They're essentially filling stations, but a certified individual must do the filling, just as they had to do 35 or 40 years ago.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  It's not. I would invite this committee to ask Canada Post here as a witness. They'll tell you directly about those costs.

Transport committee  They set those standards under the Canadian Standards Association. It is the same with propane vehicles they bring into Canada. Jurisdiction over the adoption of those regulations is different not only federally but provincially as well. It's a bit of a mishmash of standards acro

Transport committee  Propane is not a regulated utility, by and large, so the market dictates the price of the propane.