“Greasecars,” A Revolution in Driving

Nik Garvoille, the Pulse layout and design assistant, gets his gas from a very unique source: restaurant kitchens.

A few months ago, he traveled down to Louisville, Kentucky to pick up a 1987 Mercedes Benz wagon in which a “Greasecar” system had been installed. The Greasecar Vegetable Oil Conversion System is an auxiliary fuel modification system that allows diesel vehicles to run on straight vegetable oil in any climate.

Garvoille gets his “waste vegetable oil,” which has already been used for frying and cooking, from local restaurants, and he then filters it prior to use.

“The way it works,” Garvoille explained, “is there are two separate tanks, one for diesel and one for the vegetable oil. In the morning, the car starts on diesel, and once the vegetable oil has been brought to a high enough temperature, where the viscosity is similar to diesel, the system automatically switches over to run on vegetable oil.”

At first, this concept might be hard to wrap one’s mind around, but with the growing gas and energy crisis, this seems like it could be a solution to many problems.

Thus far, Garvoille has been quite pleased with the new system.

“I filled up before I left Louisville,” he explained, “and when I got home, I still had half a tank of diesel left.”

For more information on “Greasecars” visit http://www.greasecar.com.