Taxi drivers not worried about LPG price hike
What do Bangkok Taxi drivers say about fuel?
BANGKOK ~ Taxi drivers are an excellent source of information about what it costs to buy, maintain, service and run a car, so whenever I’m in a cab I always ask the driver loads of questions. Nowadays, most of my questions are about fuel and filling stations.
All the ones I spoke to this month (July 2008) say there are two alternatives to gasoline in Bangkok, namely LPG and NGV. (I believe that what they call NGV is what the rest of the world calls CNG). They all said they prefer LPG because it is available throughout Bangkok whereas NGV refill points are few and far between.
Until the customer tells them a destination, taxi drivers don’t know where they are going to be from one hour to the next. The one thing they don’t want to worry about is where can they get their tank refilled. Running out of fuel is not an option for a taxi driver.
LPG is currently priced at Bt13.35 per litre in Bangkok and is due to increase to Bt16 per litre quite soon. The main distributor of LPG in Thailand is PTT; in fact they may be the sole distributor. The taxi drivers told me that companies such as Shell and Esso don’t distribute LPG.
The taxi drivers’ estimate of what distance they get from a litre of LPG varies quite a lot. One told me he reckons he gets about 13 kilometres per litre. Another told me 15 to 20 kilometres per litre. Both of them were driving Toyota Corollas with a 1,600cc engine.
NGV, currently priced at Bt8 per litre, is of course cheaper than LPG, and my impression was that taxi drivers would be more interested in this fuel if there were more filling points. Until that happens they seem happy to run on LPG, which, even when it goes up to Bt16 per litre, will still be a lot cheaper per kilometre than gasoline.
Yes, I too believe that more drivers would be interested in CNG if it were more widely available, but it’s not clear to me whether PTT is really interested in this fuel at the moment. Presumably both fuels could be dispensed from the same refilling station.