SOVIET GARS

Evening Star, Issue 23123, 24 November 1938, Page 19

SOVIET GARS

" GAS-GENERATORS " THOUSANDS TO BE BUILT Tens of thousands of “ gas-genera-tor ” passenger motor cars, lorries, and tractors will be rolling across the broad face of Russia within a year, according to tho latest plans of the Soviet motor car industry. Wide publicity was recently given in Moscow to a two months’ trial run of “ gas-generated ” lorries. Twelve machines operating on wood and charcoal instead of petrol travelled more than 7,500 miles over a circular route extending from Moscow to Omsk, in Siberia, and back. It is claimed that, despite difficult road conditions—part of the route lay through swamps and part through sandy deserts—not one of the machines met with a mishap,* The average speed over dirt roads was between 15 and 20 miles an hour. On macadam roads speeds of 40 miles an hour were attained. FROM SOLID FUEL. The principle of gas generating consists in adapting internal combustion engines to run on gas derived from solid fuel by the installation of a special gas-generating unit. Gas generating has been widely developed in Germany and Japan as a means of reducing costjy imports of oil. Its adoption in the Soviet Union, a country with vast oil deposits, appears at first sight economically unwarranted. The Soviet authorities, however ; are prompted by highly practical considerations in their promotion of gas generatThe Soviet oilfields are mainly in the Southern Caucasus, and are remote from the vast regions of the Soviet interior. -Liquid fuel has to be transported hundreds and thousands of miles by rail or water. Gas-generating motor vehicles, on the other hand, operating on solid fuel, can bo used in regions that are far from the nearest railway. At the same time a huge saving in oil can be effected by adapting the motor' traffic to solid fuel in regions where timber, coal, and peat are plentiful. MASS PRODUCTION. The Soviet Research Institute of the motor car industry has designed a series of gas-generating installations for lorries and tractors. The experimental work Lad reached the stage where models approved by a Government commission have been placed in mass productions at the major motor car and tractor plants. According to the latest figures, iu 1939 16,000 gas-generating lorries and 9,000 gas-generating tractors will be turned out; tho corresponding figures for 1940 are fixed at 40,000 and 15,000 respectively. Projects have been completed to adapt passenger oars of standard Soviet make to gas generating.