When I first came to Japan, I felt like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future: I saw a car pull into a service station, and a flock of attendants rushed up to the car, cleaning the windows, vacuuming the inside, checking the oil and water and whatnot. Never happened in the U.S. in my lifetime!

Gasoline in Japan costs quite a bit more than in the U.S.; a gallon goes for about $3.25 by today’s prices and exchange rate. For that much money, you would expect to get better service! But in recent years, the quality of service has fallen somewhat–where you used to see teams serving cars, now it’s just a single attendant, though they will do more than just fill ‘er up. And now we seem to be seeing the downfall of even that level of service.

A few months ago, I happened across the first self-service gas station I have ever seen in Japan. I was quite surprised by it. Apparently, instead of the service guy coming out, taking care of you and then taking the payment, you instead pump gas yourself, and then swipe a card to pay for it. A single attendant stands by to help anyone who needs instructions–which I would imagine happens a lot, as few people here have ever pumped their own gas.

Apparently, self-serve stations have been around for as long as a decade, but they have been quite rare until recently. The photo above left shows one station I spied this morning that is in the process of changing from full- to self-serve.

The problem: the gas costs almost exactly the same! Maybe you get 1 yen or so less per liter (maybe 3 cents to the gallon), but that’s hardly worth the trouble. Not only do the gas companies save loads on payroll, but the self-serve paradigm also encourages users to be station card-holders. You use your Mobile or Jomo company gas station cards to pay with the swipe machine–or else you have to go over to the attendant stand for a cash transaction. Since people will prefer the card, and because they will not want to have a wallet full of cards for different companies, they will be maneuvered into being more monogamous with one company.

Sounds self-serving on the part of the gas companies to me….