New 18-seater maxi tax­ies pow­ered by com­pressed nat­ur­al gas (CNG) are ex­pect­ed to be on the roads this week.

Eon He­witt, pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxis of Trinidad and To­ba­go (AMTTT) told the T&T Guardian mak­ing the switch from diesel to CNG is a win-win sit­u­a­tion since it not on­ly re­duces their fu­el bills by 50 per cent, but the ve­hi­cles cost half of what they cur­rent­ly pay for a 25-seater ve­hi­cle.

"Right now a 15-seater maxi costs be­tween $335,000 and $340,000, a 25-seater costs be­tween $610,000 and $620,000 but we get­ting a ve­hi­cle that cost­ing us be­tween $300,000 and $322,000 and it trans­ports 18 pas­sen­gers," he said.

"When you work the maths, if you buy a 25-seater you re­al­ly pay­ing "an ad­di­tion­al $300,000 to car­ry sev­en more pas­sen­gers."

Those are just some of the plus­es He­witt be­lieves that comes with the switch to the new CNG pow­ered ve­hi­cles.

H said: "Right now it costs $110 to fill up a 15-seater maxi and $130 to fill a 25 seater maxi. The new 18 seater maxi takes 45 litres of fu­el and it will cost $45 to fill up, be­cause CNG is $1 a litre and diesel is $1.98 a litre."

He­witt said the switch al­so has ben­e­fits for the Gov­ern­ment and coun­try as "the state will have more diesel at its dis­pos­al to sell and the coun­try would ben­e­fit from a clean­er en­vi­ron­ment.

He said while on­ly two CNG pow­ered ve­hi­cles will be on the roads from this week there are more on or­der.

"The dri­vers are ex­cit­ed at this op­por­tu­ni­ty," he said.

He­witt was on hand a week ago to wit­ness the de­struc­tion and dis­pos­al of two small diesel-pow­ered maxi taxis The own­ers, Lu­cien Her­nan­dez-Maxwell and God­frey Flem­ming, agreed to NGC/CNG's con­di­tion for de­struc­tion of their ve­hi­cles, which were over 20 years old, to ac­cess the $45,000 grant to pur­chase the new CNG maxi taxis im­port­ed from the Jiang­su Joy­long Au­to­mo­bile Com­pa­ny in Chi­na.

The 18-seater maxi taxis are new to the lo­cal mar­ket which has tra­di­tion­al­ly been ser­viced by 15 and 25 seaters bus­es. The ve­hi­cles will be launched to­mor­row at the maxi taxi hub at City Gate, Port-of-Spain.

The CNG maxi taxi grant

In 2015, NGC/CNG signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing with AMTTT to pro­vide a grant to maxi taxi own­ers who dis­pose of their diesel ve­hi­cles and switch to CNG. The grant is $45,000 for small maxi taxis and $75,000 for large maxi taxis.

Last Mon­day, the ve­hi­cles be­long­ing to Her­nan­dez-Maxwell and Flem­ming were tak­en to a scrap yard and crushed with an ex­ca­va­tor. The man­gled ve­hi­cles were then torn apart and fed in­to a mas­sive shred­der which sep­a­rat­ed the pieces in­to met­al and oth­er scrap.

Fol­low­ing the dis­pos­al of the scrap from the two ve­hi­cles the own­ers were giv­en cer­tifi­cates of de­struc­tion which they took to the Li­cens­ing Of­fice to reg­is­ter their new CNG ve­hi­cles.