Why I Can’t Buy an FJ

There’s a lot of trucks parked under trees recently up here in Issan. There are numerous gas stations around our house, so we can usually find one with 91 gasohol (10 % ethanol, standard) or e20 (ethanol 20%) and the lines aren’t much worse than normal. There’d even an official app that tells you which stations have what fuel. But diesel is being hoarded up here because of this region’s agriculture, so I’ve been seeing construction equipment and trucks being supplied by containers of diesel carried on motorcycle sidecars quite often, instead of being towed for refueling to a station.

Prices went up about 5 baht per liter across the board yesterday. So the fuel shortage here is being felt, but traffic on the roads is still pretty normal for summer.

We keep our cars full, so I snapped this photo when visiting the nearest PTT station the day before prices went up.

Usually, I don’t mind putting either 91 (better mileage) or e20 (slightly cheaper) in our little Mazda, because the difference is within a baht or two, but I’ll start using e20 exclusively if the difference is this big.

If this situation lasts for a while, it will definitely influence a decision on future car purchases. EVs and hybrids were already the fastest growing sectors here, and this will probably help sell even more.

For us, combined with its price announcement last week, this has knocked the gasoline-only baby Land Cruiser completely out of contention.