City of Toccoa Gets in New Natural Gas Trucks

The city of Toccoa’s natural gas vehicle fleet continues to grow.

Toccoa Utilities Director Harry Scott said the city recently converted five new Ford F-150 pick-up trucks to bi-fuel.

That allows them to run off either natural gas or regular gasoline.

Scott said that city workers took the trucks to a company in Asheville, North Carolina to get them converted and just got all of them completed and on the road running off of natural gas last week.

“The company did a great job on the conversions,” said Scott. “They are seamless as far as when you hit the button from natural gas from gasoline, you feel no loss in power and no change in miles per gallon. The trucks are running great.”

Scott explained that the biggest benefit to the city to having trucks run off of natural gas is the cost savings the city sees in re-fueling the trucks.

“Gasoline is $3 to $4 per gallon,” said Scott. “Our bulk price on natural gas is 60 cents to $1.25 per gallon. You factor in electricity, you are still talking a tremendous savings on CNG versus regular gasoline.”

With these five new vehicles, Scott said the city of Toccoa has 10 vehicles now running off of compressed natural gas.

Also, there are plans to add an 11th vehicle to that fleet in the near future.

Scott said the city’s long-term plans still include converting more of its vehicles to have the ability to run off compressed natural gas once the city expands its capabilities to re-fuel natural gas vehicles over time.

In addition to that, Scott said the company that is currently doing the city’s vehicle conversions will train city workers to do it.

Scott said that will allow the city to only buy the kits and save on the labor costs of converting the vehicles.