Range anxiety for Victorian drivers heading north using LPG may be worse than driving an Electric Vehicle.

A friend of mine owns a car that uses LPG. Until recently I never really thought about LPG as it doesn't affect me. However, recently I've come to understand that LPG is getting harder and harder to find and you can't be sure if a service station has supplies of LPG.

LPG usage peaked around 2013, so if you purchased a car that uses LPG around that time, the car could still be in good condition. Fast forward to 2024 and service stations with a reliable supply of LPG are becoming harder to find and that can create stress for owners of LPG cars.

It occurred to me yesterday that because of my interest in creating web sites based around petrol usage, I may have some knowledge that may be useful to others.

If you're driving up the coast in Victoria, I've been told, past Lakes Entrance and the supply of LPG is unreliable. That can be a concern. Using apps like PetrolSpy don't really help as they list service stations as having LPG facilities even when they no longer supply LPG. A hint is the LPG price isn't updated.

I suggested to my friend that they don't drive up the coast, but to drive up the main highway to NSW and then head to their favourite costal locations. The reason is NSW mandates that every service station reports their fuel prices, I believe every time the price is changed. That means you have more reliable information to let you know which service stations are currently providing LPG. That doesn't mean they haven't run out of supply when you need the LPG but knowing which service stations still supply LPG is a help.

The NSW government provides a website and an app which enables consumers to check the price for fuel in NSW. The site/service is called Fuel Check. Getting the location you want to see is a bit clumsy, but with a little bit of effort you can filter for just LPG and then bring up a map, to see where there are other service stations that provide LPG.

There may be a better way, but what I did is, I went to the home page (Fuel Check (nsw.gov.au)), selected LPG and clicked on Filter. I entered the location (say Batemans Bay), clicked Search and this provided a service station near Batemans Bay.

Hint: A location only comes up in the Enter suburb/postcode field if you type the correct spelling.

At this point you'll see in the top right corner an icon with the text MAP. Click on the icon and now you can see if there are other service stations further away that may be in the direction you're heading.

I have to admit I associate range anxiety with electric vehicles but had never thought about existing vehicles which use LPG.

It only took 11 years to go from the peak of LPG cars to the situation we're now in. I can only wonder if the same may be true with petrol and diesel vehicles in another 11 years.

In Australia we only think about our situation. We have to keep in mind cars aren't built for Australia, they're built for a world market. In Australia we often drive long distances, but in other countries the distances travelled are much shorter. For example, I was very surprised to see that in Rome there's a ring road and most people live inside the ring road which is 10km out from Rome. I live 22km out from Melbourne. Our 14 day Trafalgar bus tour that took us through eight countries, a distance of around 5,000km, which for us is a return trip from Melbourne to Brisbane.

When distances travelled are much shorter and fuel prices are higher, electric vehicles make sense. If electric vehicle become the main form of passenger transport overseas, we will have no choice.

Of course, if you turn your vehicle over every few years, you can simply change as the market changes. For those of us who keep our cars for longer, mine is 16 years old, we may also have range anxiety in the future.

Kelvin