Volkswagen orders four LNG-fuelled car carriers
German automaker Volkswagen has ordered four more LNG-fuelled car carriers, the company said on July 14, noting that they would be built in China.
Volkswagen already has two car carriers that can run on LNG in service, it said, noting it is the first automaker to transport most of its new vehicles overseas using LNG-fuelled ships. The new vessels will carry between 4,400 and 4,700 vehicles, powered by 13,300-kW dual-fuel engines supplied by MAN Energy Solutions. They can travel at speeds of 15-16 knots.
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Volkswagen pointed to the environmental benefits of using LNG as fuel, noting it would reduce not only CO2 emissions but also emissions of NOx by up to 30%, soot particles by 60% and SOx by 100%. It added that the vessels' two-stroke engines used a high-pressure technology that practically eliminated methane slip, a problem that environmentalists have flagged as a key environmental drawback of using LNG as a shipping fuel.
It will be possible to retrofit two of the new ships with battery cells in the future to further reduce their fuel consumption, the automaker added.