14 DAY TRIAL // A recent report from Pike Research predicts that worldwide sales of natural gas vehicles are expected to grow rapidly over the next five years, to 3.2 million units annually by 2016 from 1.9 million in 2010.
This growth, ever, is expected to happen mostly in corporate and government sales, which means the surge will be related to the fleet market.
According to the Pike Research report, one solution to the current inadequacies in NGV infrastructure is the spread of bi-fuel vehicles.
Popular in Latin America, where almost 90% of NGVs have bi-fuel engines, these vehicles can run on either gasoline or compressed natural gas (CNG).
India, which has one of the largest fleets of CNG buses in the world, is expected to overtake Iran for the lead in NGV sales by 2014. By 2016 there will be 612,000 NGVs in India, according to Pike Research's analysis.
The strongest growth, however, will occur in the United States, where a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.4% will result in nearly 33,000 vehicles sold in 2016.
"Many manufacturers and industry observers are looking forward to the time when consumer NGVs become the next big thing," stated senior analyst Dave Hurst. "But the number of refueling stations remains too low for the consumer market to really take off in many parts of the developed world."
There are currently about 12.6 million natural gas vehicles (NGVs) in use worldwide, and sales of NGVs vary widely from region to region and country to country. The majority of NGVs are located in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.
As a portion of the worldwide total, the percentage of commercial NGVs will rise from 59% to 65% in that period, Hurst estimated.