Update on fuel costs per mile

[Chris]

Many moons ago I published a simple spreadsheet with cost per mile taking into account cost at the pump and observed mpg. It's a simple read off to show pence per mile. It doesn't take into account road tax, insurance, jelly babies or anything like that. It showed really that the slight differences at the pump or in driving economy really made very little difference.

Well I updated it today given that the cost of fuel at present is so reduced that it wasn't even on the original chart. Has it made a big difference? Well it depends. If your Cruiser returns you nearly 30 to the gallon then there really isn't a great deal of difference from the current £1.13 or so to the staggering £1.47 we were paying. But at the end of the scale if your Cruiser basically had a drink problem, it's pretty good news. I haven't filled in every column. You'll get the idea. IN a petrol you could be saving something like 17p per mile. Mid range drivers are still saving but it's not that dramatic. If you are in a manual 24v getting about 25 mpg, savings are around 6 ppm. It's still £36 on a 600 mile trip. Of course when I started driving petrol was 50p a gallon. Yes, we had decimal currency then. This would have cost me 2p per mile to drive my Cruiser then. TWO BLOODY PENCE!

 

[Chris]

Oh sorry, the point of this? Well in part is was the budget yesterday. The Chancellor, who runs the finance of this country, so he must be good at maths, said that people would save £10 per tank every time with cuts to fuel duty. Was it a penny off? Now call me thick, but just how big would a tank need to be (and it be empty) to save a tenner?

£1.13 a litre. Save a penny so that's £1.12 a litre. Average fuel tank around 60 litres. So I'd save 60p no? 100 litre tank I'd save a pound.

£10.00 divided by 1 penny = 1000 right? So wouldn't I have to have a 1000 litre tank to save £10? Or perhaps he was going to knock 10p off per litre. Of course in fiscal terms this was probably a deferred payment in real terms linked to the RPI and pensions based upon the content of an average sock drawer and not what you actually put in the tank.

 

[Towpack]

Around 5 years ago I think it was, there was a spike in fuel prices and I was paying £1.35/L in Scotland around the Loch Lomond area. Last October at the same place it was £1.19/L and I was saving just over £11 on a 70L refill of the tank. That's a 16p/L difference which certainly is worth having. A 1p/L drop is, as you say, bugger all. Never mind. There's always the 1p saving on a pint so that's a 'free' pint every 250 or so!

 

[Chris]

Cheers! That's about one week then. Arf arf.