For Robin Hase, the petrol prices are currently one thing above all: “Extremely shitty.” 2.30 euros for a liter of premium petrol shows the price table on Thursday morning at a gas station in the south of Munich when the mechatronics trainee supplies his car with new fuel; diesel even costs 2.39 euros. “Meanwhile, you only work to be able to afford to drive,” says Hase.
So maybe Saarland’s Prime Minister Tobias Hans wasn’t all that wrong when he published a selfie video on his Twitter channel this week, also taken in front of a gas station. “That’s really crazy,” he says in it and turns to the price board. “Two euros twelve! I think a point has really been reached where you have to say, you have to act.” And then there are very harsh words for a politician: The problem, says Hans, is that the state “enriches” itself from the increased energy costs. “And that’s why a fuel price brake is needed,” he demands. It is now a question of speaking up to the federal government.
But what leeway does the state have, and is filling up really more expensive than ever when compared to income?
In fact, a large part of the fuel price in Germany is due to taxes and duties: the energy or mineral oil tax is 65.45 cents per liter for premium petrol and 47.07 cents for diesel. These amounts are fixed. In addition, there is 19 percent VAT – at a price of 2.20 euros per liter that is 35.1 cents – and the CO₂ tax, which, depending on the proportion of biofuel, adds another seven cents per liter. A total of around 84 cents per liter goes to the state for diesel and around one euro for Super E10. The rest of the price – around 137 cents for diesel and around 120 cents for petrol per liter – is accounted for, among other things, by the price of the raw materials, costs for the refinery, transport and distribution and the profits of the companies involved. Product costs are likely to be the largest item at the moment.
Poland has already significantly reduced fuel taxes. That’s why petrol costs around 50 cents less there
When it comes to fuel prices, Germany is usually around 20 cents above the European average. Refueling is only expensive in Scandinavia, Greece and the Netherlands. Those who can drive across the border to Austria, Poland or the Czech Republic. The prices there are significantly lower than in Germany, in Austria the savings are around 30 cents per liter of petrol, in Poland you can even fill up for around 50 cents less per liter. In fact, this difference is mainly due to the tax burden. In Austria, for example, the mineral oil tax is 48.2 cents for petrol and 37.9 cents for diesel – and is therefore significantly lower than in this country. The value added tax in the neighboring country, on the other hand, is even slightly higher than in Germany at 20 percent. But also in Austria, the taxes on petrol are to be increased significantly from July 2022. The fact that filling up in Poland is particularly cheap is not least due to a temporary reduction in VAT – the tax on petrol and diesel was recently reduced from 23 to eight percent to counteract inflation.
Would that also be the right way for Germany to relieve consumers in the short term? In addition to the ADAC, more and more politicians such as Union leader Friedrich Merz or Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder are demanding this. According to calculations by the car club, a reduction from 19 to seven percent would bring about 22 cents per liter at current prices.
Transport scientists calculate that fuel used to be more expensive in relation to net income
But there are also transport experts who are much more cautious when looking at the current fuel prices and who point out that these absolute record figures have to be put in relation to income. Even with petrol prices around two euros per liter, drivers still have to spend a smaller proportion of their income on refueling than was the case ten years ago, says Gernot Sieg, director of the Institute for Transport Science at the University of Münster. In fact, the price of petrol has risen, from an average of 85 cents per liter in 1997 to 1.54 euros per liter in 2021 and now to two euros. But in the same period, the average net wage of all employees increased from 1334 euros to 2088 euros.
Sieg adds the technical development. According to this, the consumption of the most economical VW Polo has fallen from 6.8 liters per 100 km (year of construction 1997) to 5.31 liters per 100 km for the year of construction 2019. If you summarize all of this and assume an annual mileage of 12,000 kilometers, which is just under the German average, then it shows on the one hand that Germans have recently been used to low fuel prices: in 2020, an employee driving a Polo only had to pay 3.8 percent of his spend wages on refueling. The current leap upwards is therefore all the more violent.
On the other hand, it also shows that over the years the burden of fuel prices has been higher, for example in 2012, when there was an intermediate high and a Polo driver had to spend 6.5 percent of his salary on petrol. Under the current conditions, this high would only be reached again if the price of petrol rose to over 2.40 euros, Sieg calculates. His conclusion: “Even if car drivers have become accustomed to relatively low fuel prices and price increases are painful because they reduce consumption in other areas, this cannot be an argument that plays a decisive role in decisions on oil embargoes against war criminals.”
Other traffic scientists such as Ferdinand Dudenhöffer from the Center Automotive Research in Duisburg warn against “overdramatizing” the current price at the gas stations: For an average German driver, it’s about 40 or 50 euros more a month, such “heights” in price there are again and again, and they would moderate again. And what is this additional burden compared to the situation in Ukraine. “Several hundred people die there every day as a result of the Russian war of aggression. Large cities are being destroyed,” says Dudenhöffer.
Stefan Bratzel from the Center of Automotive Management (CAM) in Bergisch Gladbach also advises calm. His direct answer to Tobias Hans on Twitter: More than 40 percent of the personal kilometers driven by car are for leisure and vacation purposes. If you drive around ten percent less in your free time, you would save two euros per liter more in your wallet. Incidentally, according to the car researcher, one could also switch to a bicycle. “That’s not a waiver!”
On Thursday morning, Andreas Bauer stopped at the Munich gas station with his wheel loader, he works in civil engineering. Bauer says he tries to drive less in his free time. But for the job? “I don’t see riding my bike to work at five in the morning when it’s minus five degrees.”