See all Motoring Advice Fuel prices rose again in June, and according to the AA, the latest average prices at the pump around Ireland are €1.77 per litre for petrol, and €1.69 per litre for diesel. Both have gone up by 1c per litre since May.
That doesn’t mean that you should panic just yet — after all, a 1c-per-litre difference adds only around 50-to-60c every time you fill your tank, but then those extra few cents do add up, and it does mean you’re facing a bigger annual fuel bill.
In Ireland, the average annual distance covered is 16,000km, so assuming that your petrol car can average 7.0 litres per 100km (that’s 40mpg) then at today’s prices you’ll spend €1,982 per year on petrol. If you’re driving a diesel-engined car, then you might be able to average 5.5 litres per 100km, and that means an annual fuel bill of €1,487 - thanks to diesel’s lower cost, and the fact that you need around 300 litres fewer.
A price rise of 1c per litre means that your annual fuel bill rises by around €10, give or take, so for most people that’s not going to be a major imposition. However, given that we’re on the cusp of another Budget, and therefore another increase in carbon tax, which will drive up prices again, and given that continued political instability in the Middle East generally pushes fuel prices up, it may be worth considering swapping out your car for a more economical model.
So, let’s assume that you could change into a car that would save you 1.0 litres per 100km. If you’re buying a petrol car, that means averaging 6.0 litres per 100km, which is doable in some models — the likes of a 1.5 TSI VW Golf for instance — and that would bring your annual fuel bill down to €1,699. A saving of almost €300 isn’t to be sniffed at.
If you could find a diesel-engined car which could average 4.5 litres per 100km — not easy, but the likes of a well-kept Skoda Octavia 1.6 TDI might juts manage it — then you could bring your annual diesel bill down to €1,216, so that’s a saving of €200, which again isn’t small beer, but it’s perhaps not quite so impressive.
It’s a simple deal, right? Trade in for something more economical and spend the savings on a nice night out. Well, maybe not. In every car trade, there is a cost, and that cost — as far as you are concerned — is the cost to change. That is the gap between the trade-in price of your current car and the purchase price of your new wheels. If the cost to change is more than you might save in fuel over the course of three to four years, then mathematically it’s just not worth doing. Given our rough figures, that cost to change really can’t be more than around €700-900, which is pretty tight.
So is it worth upgrading your car? Well, possibly, yes. It is potentially possible to get your car’s engine ‘remapped’ — that is to have the software that runs the car’s onboard computers changed so that the engine runs a bit more economically. Cars are designed, as new, to operate in a sort of comfortable middle ground between economy, performance and emissions, but if you’re prepared to sacrifice some performance, then you can potentially improve the economy. Again, though, you need to carefully weigh up the cost of having this done against the actual economy improvements that you may (or, let’s face it, may not) see.
It would be far better to work on your own driving style. Most of us don’t really drive with fuel economy in mind, and with a bit of concentration you can make huge gains in your fuel consumption. Accelerate more gently, pre-empt having to stop so you take your foot off the accelerator early, use higher gears and lower engine revs, take needless items out of the car to save weight, and anticipate traffic flow so that you can maintain as much momentum as possible. Leave off the air conditioning, wind up the windows, pump up the tyres a bit. ’Hypermiling’ in this fashion can reap rewards, but it’s also a bit exhausting, requiring enormous concentration on even the shortest journey. Still, a little can go a long way.
What about a hybrid? Switching from a petrol or diesel car to a hybrid can bring huge fuel economy benefits, but you need to choose your car with care. Many early hybrid models were designed largely around being driven at low speeds, in town, where they can deploy their electric motors and batteries to best effect, and minimise the use of their petrol engines (there are a handful of diesel hybrids too, but most use petrol engines).
Often, these older hybrid models, when driven on long motorway journeys, suffer from much higher fuel consumption, so if that’s your daily driving routine, buy carefully. The best hybrids on the market are probably the Toyota Corolla hatchback and the Honda Jazz, both of which can achieve close to 4.5 litres per 100km on average in real-world conditions, and which won’t fall to pieces on a longer journey. Just be aware that hybrids are popular cars in Ireland right now, so the prices for used examples are high, and that will drive up the all-important cost of change.
Is it worth it to go electric? Well, you’ll benefit from lower motor tax (although you will still have to pay €120 a year, so it’s not that massive a saving), and you can utterly slash your fuel bills. Yes, your electricity bill will go up, but if you’re careful with your charging, and maximise your night-rate usage, you really can run an electric car on cents.
Just as an example, let’s take the MG4 electric hatchback, a car with a 64KWh battery and an official range of 450km. And let’s further assume that you’re on a night-rate electricity tariff, which gives you cheaper charging overnight, and really cheap charging for four hours between 2am and 6am.
That burst of power between 2am and 6am could — from a 7.4kW home charger — get you 28kWh of energy at 8c per kWh which works out at just €2.24. With the MG’s net useable battery capacity of 61.7kWh, that’s a little less than half a charge, and if we assume that the WLTP range figure is correct, that should give you a range of around 220km. Given that the Central Statistics Office estimates that the average Irish driver covers less than 20km per day, this means you can in theory pay just 22c per day in ‘fuel’ costs.
Of course, that’s only if you’re charging up those 28kWh and using only those. For longer journeys, you’ll need a little more. To charge up the remaining 33.7kWh on the discounted Energia night rate of 15.03c per kWh, will cost you €5.06, meaning that a full 450km charge will cost €7.30.
That means you could cover the annual average Irish mileage of just over 16,000km with 35 full charges, leaving you with a potential annual ‘fuel’ cost of €255. Obviously, you won’t really get the full 450km out of each full charge, and you need to allow for motorway journeys (which come with higher energy usage) and cold weather (ditto) but let’s work on the basis that you can get a realistic 400km out of each full charge. Now you will need to fully charge the car 40 times, leaving you with an annual ‘fuel’ cost of €292.
That’s an almost ridiculous saving compared to running a petrol or diesel car. Of course, there are other costs to consider, not least getting a home charger installed, which costs between €1,000 and €1,400 all-in (and there can be subsidiary costs if you need to upgrade your home wiring or meter), but even so you’re looking at a saving on your fuel bills of more than €1,000 a year, year after year.
Even so, as with all decisions outlined above, it all comes down to the cost to change from your existing car to a new one. Do your sums carefully.