Let's discuss!

Arguments I've heard against NGV:

Taxi drivers do it because it's their livelihood. They need to make a profit. So, to lessen costs, it is necessary for them to use NGV. You are a normal user. You don't need NGV.

True. But with the recent petrol price hike, the difference in price between 1 litre of petrol and 1 litre of NGV has become too big to be insignificant. We're not talking about a difference of 50 cents or even RM1. We're talking about a difference of RM2.07 per liter.

Even a normal user will benefit significantly cost-wise by using NGV.

Change your driving habits, not change to NGV. Drive less.

If I am a user that has been making a lot of joyrides, then maybe changing my driving habits may be the way to go.

However, my car is used only for necessary journeys. I can't "drive less" if I have to drive to get to those places, e.g. to work, to church, to Section 10.

Ok, maybe I can cycle to school. But my current RM0.3k bike is killing my posture. It won't do good for my minor scoliosis. To cycle without pulling my back out, I'll need a well-fitted RM3k bike. That will cost almost as much as an NGV installation already.

To church. Nobody else from church stays in my area. If I want to take public transport, I have to go to Terminal Putra, take an LRT to KL Central, then take the KTM to Kepong. The cost of travelling this way will be even higher than driving. And the time wastage will not be worth it.

Besides, you need to drive to get to Terminal Putra.

Section 10. Same as above. I'll still need to drive to Terminal Putra, the cost + the waiting is not worth it.

How will it affect the car mechanically?

It will lose some power. But I'm not going racing. It's purely for economical reasons.

How will it affect the car physically?

I will have to sacrifice boot space. That means, it may be less useful as a vehicle to shift things from place to place. I may have to hire a lorry next time if I'm going to shift out, or if I'm helping someone else to shift out.

It may be less comfortable if I'm taking 4 passengers for a road trip. Some luggage may have to sit with them on their laps.

I guess it's an unavoidable sacrifice that must be made. But I don't play golf. So, it may not be that bad.

There are too few NGV kiosks. If you run out of gas and you can't find an NGV kiosk, your car will be stuck and you're done for.

You don't have to throw away your petrol tank when you install the NGV tank. You can have both tanks running. You can switch to petrol anytime, and switch back to NGV anytime.

The Petronas kiosk just downstairs from my place has NGV. All I have to do is fill up on NGV when there's no queue, and keep RM20 worth of petrol in the tank for emergency use.

What if you shift out from Selayang? What if you come back to Penang for long-term? You can't rely on Selayang's Petronas kiosk forever. There are no NGV kiosks in Penang.

I'm sure I can find out from the taxi drivers where else NGV can be found in Selangor/KL.

With the recent petrol price hike, many private users will be installing NGV apparatus. It wasn't a need then. But it is becoming a need now. With an increase in demand, there will be an increase in supply. So, many NGV kiosks may spring up in the near future. It can't be too hard to imagine that Penangites will be running on NGV one day too.

But of course, this is an assumption. It still baffles a lot of people why NGV is so scarce if it's so much cheaper and it is environment-friendly. Maybe it's some conspiracy up there to make us continue to buy petrol. If everyone starts using NGV, what will that do to the oil industry?

Anyway, if my calculations are correct, I would've recovered my "losses" from installing NGV apparatus in around a year's time. I'm betting I won't get rich fast enough to buy a house elsewhere in a year's time. And I won't get posted elsewhere that fast either.

Worst case scenario, I may just uninstall the NGV apparatus. But that will not happen before the cost has been recovered.

If you can think of this, I'm sure everyone else would have thought of this before.

Yah. So... Just because nobody or very few people have thought of it, it is not possible for me to have thought of it? It's not conceivable for me to make a wise, pragmatic step because nobody or very few people have done it before?

If the demand for NGV increases, so will the cost of NGV installation and the price of NGV gas in the very near future. So, it won't be much of a difference compared with petrol.

Yes. But I'm betting it won't rise fast enough before I can recover my costs. RM2.70 per liter for petrol and RM0.635 per liter for NGV gas. It will take a very long time for the price of NGV gas to quadruple.

But of course, it is still conjecture. In Malaysia, you'll never know. Once they find out certain people have been beating the system, they may make a drastic policy change overnight. Or sometimes, in the same evening.

Ask the Singaporeans. Ask the Thais.