Fuel prices have been soaring for several weeks. At the pump, a liter of diesel often exceeds 2 euros now. As a result, drivers are increasingly looking for gas stations offering the cheapest prices to fill up there. With this sharp increase, gasoline is becoming a major concern for the French.
A finding that is very clearly perceived by the start-up Ripple Motion, located in Saint-Herblain, near Nantes. This company created the Gasoline&CO app in 2008. With this tool, drivers can analyze and compare prices at the pump in real time, on a map that displays the various service stations in the vicinity. For almost a month, the Nantes app has been experiencing a new life. After the shortage at the pump in 2017, Essence & CO is once again in high demand. “The volume of traffic on the application has increased significantly. Daily traffic has increased twentyfold since the start of this crisis,” notes Pierre Auclair, manager of Essence & CO.
Prices are rising, so are users
Compared to the end of 2020, the number of people using the application has tripled. A considerable increase, which its leader had not known until then. “Over a month, we have 3.5 million active users. It is constantly increasing. As soon as prices at the pump increase, so does the number of users. “People push the competition when they think it’s getting too expensive. This is currently the case in France, where Essence & CO lists all service stations and their prices, as well as in Spain, Germany and Italy.
And if the Nantes application is so well informed about prices, it is also because it can count on its users, who have the possibility of reporting and updating these prices. “The user can notify others of a price change at this or that gas station. This is one of the elements that allowed us to be highlighted during the shortage, in 2017. Because people were informing about the stations where there was still gasoline, ”recalls the leader.
“Few reasons for the price to drop”
Same thing today, where the prices indicated by the app can be modified in real time by users, provided that they are geographically close to the service station in question. According to Pierre Auclair, regular users of Essence & CO would thus save an average of 60 to 100 euros per year. “I even think that for three weeks, the economy has been more significant, because the prices are less homogeneous. The more it fluctuates, the greater the savings can be. The current crisis around energy tariffs is now accompanied by certain blockages of oil depots by professionals.
A situation that could create a risk of shortage, in anticipation of drivers. Faced with this unstable period, the Nantes leader does not venture into a prognosis: “Very clever whoever can predict this evolution of fuel prices. But there is little reason for the price of energy to fall now. »