CNG truck sales see drastic fall as buyers favour diesel

Level of CNG penetration in intermediate trucks is down to 4% in the first two months of FY24

- Alisha Sachdev

The share of 10-15 tonne trucks that run on compressed natural gas (CNG) has fallen sharply from a peak of 38% at the end of fiscal year 2022, to just 4% in the first two months of the ongoing fiscal, industry data sourced by Mint showed.

The drastic fall in preference for natural gas in the trucking industry— even after a revised gas pricing formula came into effect in April—shows running trucks on CNG is not proving economically viable for fleet operators, who have to offset lower running costs against higher prices of vehicles with new technologies.

At the end of FY23, the share of CNG vehicles in the so-called intermediate commercial vehicle or ICV segment had already come down dramatically to 12%.

Now, sales of ICV trucks running on CNG have fallen to just a quarter of FY23 levels.