Americans have been up in arms recently about the price of fuel. ABC News were so irate they sent a reporter out to a gas station to film a segment on the rise in prices. Unfortunately, the particular branch of Chevron they chose to film outside of did nothing to calm the rising anger.

As the segment starts, the reporter points out the price of a gallon of regular petrol is now at $ 4.99. A short investigative piece starts and before we know it, we’re back with the reporter again. But hang on a minute, the price has risen once again! Now it’s a whole ten cents more expensive! Jalopnik may have just hit the nail on the head here when they point out that the random price jump coincides with the arrival of two Corvettes.

The unfortunate blunder was caught on live television and it makes you wander, just how often does this sort of price manipulation happen around the world?

Whilst $ 4.99 per gallon may seem a lot to Americans, over here in Europe we have it far worse. The lowest price in my area is £1.33 per litre, the Netherlands pays € 1.70 per litre and Germany € 1.68 per litre. There’s 4.55 litres to a gallon, so compared to America’s $ 4.99 per gallon, in the UK we pay £6.05 per gallon, Netherlands pays € 7.74 per gallon and Germany pays € 7.64. Taking into account the current exchange rate that means we pay $ 9.52, $ 10.35 and $ 10.22 respectively per gallon.

A comparison with where it all goes comes out differently too. For every £ 10 a UK motorist pays, £ 4.60 goes to fuel duty taxes, £ 1.66 goes to VAT, £ 3.43 goes to the oil company and 31p, to the petrol station. Whereas the US customer gets 12 percent of their fuel price go to taxes, the UK customer gets a staggering 62.6 percent!

Of course this isn’t the argument that US motorists are putting forward. They are worried at the sheer level of inflation over such a short period of time. We’re merely pointing out how much of an increase the US would have to take before it hit the same basic prices. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this, more or less, non-car related article. Normal service will resume shortly!

[Via Jalopnik]

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4 COMMENTS

  1. BTW you’ve done your maths wrong. 62.6% of the UK fuel price is tax, but that doesn’t mean it’s taxed at 62.6%. It’s actually over 267% tax.

    (£10 / (£3.43 + £.31)) * 100 = 267.38%

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