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Quite often, authoritative sources – for example the June issue of Auto magazine – speak and write about LPG and CNG with an arrogance that is close to derision. As if LPG or CNG were to blame for the fact that not enough diesel or gasoline-fueled cars are being sold. The former are effectively ecological, and the latter are only the result of a lack of industrial farsightedness that, 30 years ago, made the industry privilege gasoline engines over diesel.

Gas as fuel, however, according to some (very few, at this point) is little more than a borderline fraud of the economic and ecological sector and is only successful thanks to “so-called green city councils” or “acquiescent” institutions that exploit motorists as if they were dupes, unable to think and make decisions on their own.

Obviously, this is not the case, and all that would be necessary to reveal the truth is a correct economic assessment of consumptions – which the journalistic sources themselves publish. Now it appears really out of place when we encounter the old saw that tries to pass off those who use gas-fueled cars as poor people who don’t use their head and buy or convert their cars to gas only because they are about ready to jump out the window anyway.

Among other things, if we really want to talk about the energy-environment balance – which is the only serious argument to use in speaking of prospects - in France, they will soon have to burn LPG because domestic and civilian consumption has dropped drastically and the production will have to be used for vehicles.

Then, no matter what “those in the know” may say, the strategies of all the major automakers worldwide have been to maintain diesel only for large engines. On the small engines, which were diesel-fueled in the past, the passage is to turbo gasoline: if diesel had the fame of being “fun-to-drive”, thanks to the torque at low rpm, now with the turbo on gasoline engines there is not much difference in the drivability compared to diesel, even with the conversion to gas.

Instead of denigrating the adversaries – leaving this deplorable action to political competition – it would be better to relax and admit the fact that “luckily, in Italy the technology of gas for cars is solid”. It has saved the industry and car sales – and everything that revolves around them – from completely halting, as these same sources show; it has enabled many families to save a few hundred euro every month, which is money they can spend on other things for the benefit of the whole economy; it ensures the survival of an excellent technological sector made in Italy that the rest of the world envies us.

We can understand the frustration of the pro-diesel partisans who promote a product they especially love, but are less able to understand the general antipathy, almost envy, that some have for the success of gas-fueled cars. It would be more useful and more professional to show a greater equilibrium of judgment toward those who, all things being equal, choose a solution that causes less urban pollution and puts a little money in people’s pockets.

Ugo Nazzarro

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