The overwhelming popularity of the Ford F-150 hasn’t stopped Ford from continuing to innovate. While one of the advantages of the F-150 pickup has always been its incredible reliability, allowing some drivers to hang on to their truck for decades or more, Ford still pushes the boundaries with each new release—and that is what they’ve done with the 2014 F-150 pickup, which they have just produced the first of with a compressed natural gas (CNG) engine.
So what’s the story with compressed natural gas? It turns out that, among alternative fuels, CNG has some advantages in terms of its clean burn and low cost. The difficulty lies in the technology to utilize the fuel source in a working car engine—and this is where Ford has gone above and beyond for the 2014 F-150 pickup. Unlike any other vehicle rolling down the streets of Lawrenceburg, Ford F-150 trucks can utilize this alternative fuel source with an easy transition, but still make use of traditional liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The upshot is that, between them, with the largest tank sizes and full reserves of both CNG and LPG, these fuels will take an F-150 pickup 750 miles before having to re-fuel.
The magic for this incredible technology lies in the work Ford puts into its engine development. In the case of the 2014 F-150, the secret is a 3.7-liter V6 which receives adaptations to harden its valve, valve seats, pistons, and rings so that it can operate with either fuel source. Ford is currently the only manufacturer offering a half-ton pickup with the CNG option, and just in time—there are nearly 20 states that either offer, or plan to offer, tax incentives or rebates for CNG-enabled vehicles.
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