A Global Roadmap for Autogas

Autogas is the most popular alternative to the two conventional automotive fuels – gasoline and diesel – for two- and three-wheelers, passenger cars and vans worldwide, and a leading fuel for medium and heavy-duty vehicles.

Demand has been growing steadily in recent years, reaching around 27 million tonnes in 2017, and, in some countries, accounts for a significant share of the overall LPG and transport-fuel market. There are now over 27 million Autogas vehicles in use around the world – almost four times more than in 2000. This has not happened by chance: a growing number of governments around the world actively encourage use of the fuel in recognition of its notable health and environmental benefits, both in improving air quality and mitigating climate change, as well as its inherent practical and cost advantages over conventional and other alternative fuels.

But, in many cases, this message is not getting across. Motorists are not always properly informed about the financial benefit of switching to Autogas. And policy makers are not always aware of the potential for Autogas to contribute to transport and environmental policy goals, so that the fuel is not always taxed and priced appropriately. The focus of government policies in many cases is now increasingly focused on boosting the role of electric vehicles (EVs). Yet EVs are still far from being able to compete widely with either conventional fuels or Autogas. In any case, for as long as the electricity to power these vehicles is produced using fossil fuels, they will offer only limited environmental benefits.

The most practical approach in the short-term to reducing emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases in road transport is to encourage people and businesses to switch to cleaner-burning fuels that are already commercially available and competitively priced. Autogas is the obvious option. It outperforms conventional fuels and most other alternative automotive fuels for local and regional environmental benefits. It can also play an important role in mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions until such time as ultra-low or zero-emission vehicle technologies become commercially viable on a large scale. And existing onventional vehicles can easily be converted to run on Autogas, bringing immediate benefits. In this sense, Autogas can be regarded as a “bridging fuel” in the transition to a zero-emission energy system that is likely to last decades.

The purpose of this report is to set out a roadmap for how Autogas can play that role to the full. It starts by setting the scene, with a review of the global prospects for road transport and the advantages of Autogas over other fuels. It then establishes an aspirational yet entirely realistic target of doubling the global share of Autogas in the overall road-transport fuel market built on a set of plausible projections of how the road-transport fuel market could evolve to 2040. And it presents quantitative estimates of just how big the social, economic and environmental benefits of reaching that target would be, relative to a business-as-usual baseline.

Meeting that target will require concerted action on the part of (i) the Autogas sector – fuel suppliers, distributors and retailers, (ii) the motor industry – vehicle manufacturers and producers and installers of fuel systems – and (iii) governments to make switching to Autogas attractive to end users. This roadmap identifies the barriers to market development and scopes out the actions needed to overcome those barriers and ensure that the vision of a vibrant Autogas market is achieved.