Japanese Aren’t Fuel-Hardy at New Self-Serve Stations

When Sanae Nakano pulled into her usual gas station the other day, she was handed a leaflet explaining the ABCs of filling the tank, starting with “Park the car in an open space.”

Nakano was not pleased to learn that her neighborhood General Oil station in Yokohama had become one of Japan’s self-serve-gas guinea pigs.

“I’m afraid I’ll set the place on fire,” Nakano confided as an attendant coaching gas-pumpers held the nozzle while she and her two young children huddled around the pump. “It’s a lot of trouble. You didn’t have to get out of the car before.”

Though self-serve stations have been part of the U.S. landscape for two decades--and most Americans now fill their own tanks--Japanese drivers could do so only beginning April 1.

Despite a lot of hoopla in Japan, however, self-serve appears to be off to a slow start.

Daunted by the high cost of equipment conversion, extensive safety requirements and thin profit-margin forecasts, only a handful of stations nationwide has gone the do-it-yourself route.

And those that have made the switch are counting on a rather curious draw to lure new customers: shame. Most customers feel too embarrassed to order anything less than a full tank in return for full service. In Japan, where gas sells for double what it costs in the United States, that can be a pricey proposition.

So far, there’s been little monetary incentive to entice drivers to prime the pumps themselves--at least not while full-service coddling is available down the street for, at most, dimes more per tank.

Such a small premium is hardly an indulgence in an expensive country with an excellent public transit system, where cars are more ornament than utility.

“They just make my windshield squeaky clean and wash my tires so they look brand new,” gushed Rei Yaegashi, 25, as three attendants yelling “Irashaimase!”--”Welcome!”--ushered him into a full-service station in Tokyo, filled his tank, washed his windows, dumped his ashtray and checked his oil, transmission fluid and battery. “I don’t think most Japanese will want to do it themselves, especially girls.”

As Yaegashi pulled away, an attendant jumped into a busy street to halt oncoming traffic and directed him out of the lot--all part of the full-serve routine here.

Explained station manager Yasunori Kikuchi, “I don’t think consumers can pull in, pump gas and leave the station without bumping into each other or making a mess in a small place like this.”

Oil Firms Also Skeptical

Even the oil companies that have ventured into the self-serve business are skeptical of its viability. Cosmo Oil, the third-largest gas station operator in Japan with 6,573 stations, has opened just one self-serve stand and plans only a dozen in the next year. Nippon Oil, the largest with 9,700 stations, has launched just two, including one joint venture with a McDonald’s restaurant in Kobe. (The idea is to entice customers pulling out of the station to drive directly to the adjacent hamburger stand.)

General Oil, a joint venture between Exxon Corp. and several Japanese companies that has 2,400 stations, initially planned 20 self-serve stations, but it cut back to four.

“We didn’t think the returns would be so quick,” said Hidenobu Fujiyama, General Oil’s managing director who was on hand during the launch of the self-serve station in Yokohama.

Converting from full-service to self-service involves a $200,000 investment, he said, because Japan requires far more equipment than the U.S. does. Devices that automatically douse flames at the pump and detect when diesel is mistakenly going into an unleaded tank are mandatory. Video cameras must be trained on each pump to relay images to a monitor at the cashier stand. And an attendant equipped to deal with hazardous materials must be on duty at all times.

Nevertheless, Fujiyama figures self-serve cuts labor costs in half--and labor expenses make up half of total operating costs. A union representing workers has complained about possible staff reductions, although the gas stations maintain that they employ mostly part-timers anyway.

Paltry Price Incentives

Despite the savings, General Oil sells self-serve gas in Yokohama for 78 yen, or 60 cents, per liter, only about 2 cents less than the price offered by the full-serve JOMO station down the street. So customers save only about 60 cents on a typical 30-liter purchase. High-octane fuel sells for exactly the same as when the station was full-serve.

The paltry incentives prompt about one of every five customers at the self-serve station to complain, a General Oil cashier in Yokohama said.

“It’s OK today because the weather is nice,” Yukie Seki said. “But if it’s cold or rainy and you have to get out of your car, it’s not worth it.”

Indeed, dozens of customers said they would convert to self-serve if the savings were greater.

“I’m not motivated to go now,” Junichi Anzai said.

But ferocious competition keeps prices at the pump from falling, General Oil’s Fujiyama said. Though still expensive, gas prices have been tumbling in the two years since Japan began allowing imports of oil products refined outside the country. So supermarkets and other non-oil companies have begun selling gas too.

“If we lower the price, then others will lower the price, and it will be difficult to catch up,” Fujiyama said.

Several gas companies say they are counting on luring drivers who are mortified to buy less than a full tank or who do not want to endure sales pitches for extra-charge services, such as oil changes.

“Japanese customers are shy,” Fujiyama said. “They cannot say no.”

One such customer was a 26-year-old retail clerk who drove 20 minutes out of his way to buy $7 worth of gas at the Yokohama self-serve station.

At a full-serve stand, he said, “they’ll think I have no money.” The real reason he doesn’t fill up his tiny car, he insisted, is because he’d drive more if he did.

Since Yukari Kawai’s husband gets paid monthly, she’d also rather not feel obliged to shell out $40 for a full tank when she’s running short on cash toward the end of the month.

“You don’t have to tell the staff how much you want” at self-serve stations, she said.

Avoiding All the Fuss

For those customers who ask, “Are you kidding?” and then drive off as they learn the General Oil station has gone self-serve, attendant Akio Matoba saves his ultimate sales pitch: “You can always come back when you need only 5 or 10 liters,” he shouts.

But others are getting into the self-service groove because they are repelled by the “over-service” most stands proffer.

“I don’t need all that fuss,” ophthalmologist Masato Yoshida said as he filled the tank of his Mercedes-Benz 190E.

“It’s not about saving money,” salesman Masamichi Ito added. “It’s more about spending money that’s not worth spending.”

One group that’s accepting the changes better than anticipated is women, Fujiyama said. The gas company thought of dispensing gloves to offset concerns that women would not want to get their hands dirty. It rejected the idea, however, after concluding that using gloves worn by other customers would be even more of a turnoff than pumping barehanded. In any case, the attendants ensure the station is kept immaculately clean, wiping down the pumps and even the trash bins during lulls in business.

And some, like Kumiko Takada, who filled her Jeep Cherokee herself for the first time, find that it’s far easier than they thought. “Americans do everything for their cars by themselves, so it’s good for Japanese to start doing it too.”

Chiaki Kitada and Etsuko Kawase of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.