Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 16, 1993 TAG: 9305150069
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD TRUETT KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: ORLANDO, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
"We don't like to be called a gas station. That's an insult. We are a service station. We provide a service to the community. Eighty-five percent of our business is local," said Mullins, while manning the cash register at Mullins Shell Service Center, a fixture at Princeton Street and Interstate 4 in Orlando for a quarter of a century.
Yes. There still are a few service stations in town where you can drive in and have the tank filled, the oil and tires checked, and the windshield cleaned without getting out of your car.
You might even get a radiator hose or a fan belt changed at 2 in the morning.
You'll pay about 30 cents more a gallon for full service, but at least a few people think it's worth it.
"There are people who wouldn't touch a gas nozzle if it was $5 a gallon," said Mullins, whose Shell station has a wall full of company awards for outstanding service.
Mullins, though, finds himself in a situation similar to other station owners across the country. In his case, Shell wants him to build a new station, minus the service bays and the full-service lane.
In their quest to sell more gasoline and reduce overhead, gas companies want customers to be able to drive in, pump their gas quickly and get rolling again with a minimum amount of hassle and delay.
That's one reason why many gas stations now employ mainly cashiers.
The disappearance of the full-service gas station from the landscape of America continues. It's just one of the changes that is transforming the way we buy gasoline.
Two of the nation's biggest gas-pump manufacturers say convenience is the operative word that is driving the evolution of gas stations.
Nowadays you don't even need to deal with a cashier when you fill up, thanks to pumps that accept credit and debit cards.
In gas-pumpspeak, those machines are known as CRIND - card reader in dispenser - pumps.
Gilbarco, a gas pump manufacturer in Greensboro, N.C., even sells pumps that accept cash, though they are not yet commercially successful, said Frank Kendall, Gilbarco's marketing manager.
"There's no way we are ever going to make buying gas a pleasant experience. But what we can do is make it as less onerous as possible," said Kendall.
The CRIND pumps have been out for a few years. And they are a fixture at Mullins Shell station. Nationally, only about 10 percent of all gas station pumps accept cards or cash, according to the Petroleum Marketers Association based in Virginia.
Mullins said about 45 percent of his customers use the CRIND pumps. He said handicapped persons and parents who don't want to leave their children unattended find them especially convenient.
But they reduce the cost of doing business for Mullins because there's less paperwork and less cash to handle, he said.
The next big change motorists are likely to see is a different type of nozzle that will be lighter, easier to use and that will eliminate the step of having to flip up the lever to turn on the pump.
The Tokheim Corp. of Fort Wayne, Ind., another large manufacturer of gas pumps, is developing the new nozzle that will be electronic, said Gene Mittermaier, Tokheim's special products director.
The electronic nozzle will be able to pump as much as a third more fuel in the same amount of time, and it will automatically shut off when the tank is full - without splashing fuel out of the tank, said Mittermaier.
Another type of nozzle built by Gilbarco pulls gas vapors away from the car during refueling and returns them to the underground fuel tank.
Gilbarco's Kendall said the nozzles will be used in cities that exceed the EPA's air-pollution standards.
Nozzles are not all that's changing. Gas stations of the future could be without humans altogether.
They could be totally automated.
Mittermaier said there are a few prototype automated stations in Sweden. And the idea could catch on in this country, possibly within 20 years, if automakers could agree to place the fuel cap and filler doors in the same place in every vehicle.
Gas pump innovations, Mittermaier says, help keep down the cost of fuel. With fewer employees, station owners can reduce their insurance costs.
Mel Sherbert, president of the Service Station Dealers of America, a trade organization based in the Washington, D.C., area, believes that full-service stations eventually will disappear.
Then, he says, they will make a limited comeback as competition increases.
Sherbert said self-service stations now account for 75 percent of all gasoline sold in the United States. "The truth is, full service business is dying because it's older people who want full service," Sherbert said from his Amoco station in Prince George's County, Md.
"I think full service will go away," he said. "But to get business, we will add services. We will have someone out there checking under the hood. I'm thinking of doing that now."
by CNB