Charcoal Fuel for Buses in China

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 202, 11 September 1937, Page 16

Charcoal Fuel for Buses in China

. m • ^ ; NANKING. — In view of the high cost of gasoline in China, where it is distributed largely by American oil companies, the Chinese National Highway Commission is developing for use in the interior a type of motorbus utilizing powdered eharcoal as fuel. It has been found that a veMele of this type can be operated at about one-fifth of the cost of xunning its gasoliue-driveu competitors. The new charcoal bus is built around the chassis of a Diamond truck with a special fuel box in the rear. To all outward appearanees it is indistinguishable from the ordinary gasoline motor truck exeept for a eylinder attached to the running board on one side. The bus was giveu its first Teal test on the grueling 2422-mile stretch from Nanking to the south-we&tern province of Yunnan along with 16 gasoline trucks and buses which formed a caravan dispatehed recently to test the new highway conneeting that extremity of the Republie with the capital. Big Saving Shown. The charcoal bus kept up with the gasoline buses without any trouble, averaging 30 miles per hour and demonstrating its ability to maintain a speed of 40 miles per hour with a full load on the better roads. A check-up showed that the charcoal bus covered the distanee of more than 2000 miles on roughly 27 dollars (TJ.S.) worth of fuel, while the gasoline buses each consumed fuel to the value of about 135 dollars (U.S.), for flve times the cost of operating the charcoal bus. This performanee &o impressed the authorities of Human Province, through which the charcoal bus passed with the caravan, that orders were placed for 50 suck vehicles to be delivered in the near future for the use of the Proviucial Government. When the test bus finally reached its destination at Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, it was immediately acquired by Gen. Lung Yun, chairinan of the Yunnan Provineial Administration. Avoids Importations. Charcoal buses are not altogother innovations in China, for" tho army has used an increasing number of tkese vehicles during the last three years in an attempt to make itself independent of imported gasoline in case of emcrgency. Gasoline sells in China at prices ranging from Chineso 1.08 dollars per gaJlon in seaboard cities to 2 dollars per gallon in the interior. The advent of tlie charcoal fuel motorbus and truck ia expected to solvo tho problem of clieaper highway transportation in China, where 14,525 miles of highway have been built in the last fivo years. There are at present 6S,310 miles of highways , in China, forming a network conneeting the capital with outlying paris.