Will Sales of Petrol Cars Plumet After July?

who_ru

hi,

just a question to guage opinions really.

what do you think?

after july diesels will be cheaper than petrol motors, are already more economical to run and generally a better buy all round.

does that mean that sales of petrol motors in the long run will fall to a level like that on the continent where i think diesel engines account for more than 70% of car sales.

biko

I'll let you know in the autumn

klaus23

who_ru wrote: »

after july diesels will be cheaper than petrol motors, are already more economical to run and generally a better buy all round.

Here's a little nugget of information for you, based on the current prices:

* Ford Mondeo 5dr Zetec 2.0 TDCi costs €34,795, list price from Ford.

Manufacturer quoted consumption is 47mpg (parkers.co.uk). If you finance the car over five years with AIB it costs you €41900.40. (AIB.ie)

* Ford Mondeo 5dr Zetec 2.0i costs €31,515, list price from Ford.

Manufacturer quoted consumption is 35mpg (parkers.co.uk). If you finance the car over five years with AIB it costs you €37950.60. (AIB.ie). We assume that for the sake of these calculations the cars depreciate the same way and there is no percentage difference on resale value in five years time.

That leaves a difference, on purchase price alone, of €3949.80, for a 12 miles per gallon difference on economy. We assume that petrol and diesel cost the same, which they don't, currently, but that they will stay that way at €1.20 a litre over the course of these calculations.

To cover a UK average mileage of 12,000 miles at 47 mpg you'll need 1160 litres costing you €1392.04. At 35 mpg you'll need 1558 litres costing you €1870. That's a difference of €477, which over five years is €2385. So the petrol car, using those averages, is cheaper to buy and run. Only if you begin to work at over 20,000 miles for each of those five years does the diesel car begin to pay for itself, and even then you're only up pennies.

From what I can gather, the CO2% tax rate for the diesel will be €430, and the petrol is €600, so you break even on the initial (current) purchase over five years.

But to start actually saving making money on the original purchase, you're talking starship mileage and even then the difference is only measured in hundreds of euro - and this becomes even more distorted given that diesel now costs over 5c a litre more than diesel.

I would be surprised if the diesel car worked out significantly (i.e. thousands) less to run if you did your sums based on the future selling prices,

-Chris-

Definitely less petrols. Hugely less.

Some people won't be able to get their head around the "smelly tractor" image of diesel, but for everyone else diesel will make a lot of sense.

It won't be all diesel by any manner of means, but certainly people who never entertained the idea before will be receptive to it now.

astrofool

I won't be looking at a new car till mid 2010, I'm glad I'm not going to be caught up in the quagmire of the changeover till then (and then get a nice 530d )

tw0nk

astrofool wrote: »

I won't be looking at a new car till mid 2010, I'm glad I'm not going to be caught up in the quagmire of the changeover till then (and then get a nice 530d )

will there be any diesel left by then!?

RiverWilde

My car is 13 yrs old and I don't plan on changing it any time soon

Riv

Cmar-Ireland

Diesel is between 6 - 8c per litre dearer than petrol in many places now. If that trend continues then I'd say this will have a big impact on the sales of diesels.

RobAMerc

It will be like that till the government come up with some bull**** propaganda (they wont have to dig too deep) about diesels this time and start taxing the crap out of it.

Cionád

Cmar-Ireland wrote: »

Diesel is between 6 - 8c per litre dearer than petrol in many places now. If that trend continues then I'd say this will have a big impact on the sales of diesels.

It's strange that this is not the case in the Maynooth area, where the price of diesel/ pertrol has been within 1-2 cent of each other in each of the filling stations (tesco, esso, maxol & applegreen(celbridge)).

Today i filled up in Tesco for 119.9, Petrol was 118.9.

Also, diesel is generally more expensive in winter, I'd expect it to get cheaper as the weather gets better. Surely they can import more in the case of increased demand.

Cmar-Ireland

Cionád wrote: »

It's strange that this is not the case in the Maynooth area, where the price of diesel/ pertrol has been within 1-2 cent of each other in each of the filling stations (tesco, esso, maxol & applegreen(celbridge)).

Today i filled up in Tesco for 119.9, Petrol was 118.9.

Also, diesel is generally more expensive in winter, I'd expect it to get cheaper as the weather gets better. Surely they can import more in the case of increased demand.

One of the garages in Newbridge has petrol for 117c. Diesel is 123c.

djimi

Cionád wrote: »

It's strange that this is not the case in the Maynooth area, where the price of diesel/ pertrol has been within 1-2 cent of each other in each of the filling stations (tesco, esso, maxol & applegreen(celbridge)).

Today i filled up in Tesco for 119.9, Petrol was 118.9.

Also, diesel is generally more expensive in winter, I'd expect it to get cheaper as the weather gets better. Surely they can import more in the case of increased demand.

I live around Naas and diesel is generally 6-9c per litre more expensive than petrol. Unless that changed there is no way Id be in a hurry to change to a diesel car, although to be honest, short of a i-CTDi Accord, there is very little chance of me ever going for a diesel car.

Cionád

Cmar-Ireland wrote: »

One of the garages in Newbridge has petrol for 117c. Diesel is 123c.

Yea, and theres a place in Dunboyne(esso i think) that has Petrol at 124.9 and Diesel at 130.9. I reckon theres something fishy going on...

If all the places in Maynooth are making money(presumably!), why are people getting ripped off elsewhere?

Cmar-Ireland

Time for the haulage industry to revolt. The Gov needs a kick up the arse to get the prices sorted. The french had the right idea!

E92

klaus23 wrote: »

Here's a little nugget of information for you, based on the current prices:

* Ford Mondeo 5dr Zetec 2.0 TDCi costs €34,795, list price from Ford.

* Ford Mondeo 5dr Zetec 2.0i costs €31,515, list price from Ford. <snip>

Which is of course the pre July price, the VRT falls by quite a bit in July for the diesel(it falls for the petrol too, but only by a small bit).

The price gap will narrow quite a bit in July for them. By the way the 2.0 petrol is €31,915 these days, but because it now has a Flexi fuel engine(all Mondeo, S-Max and Galaxy 2.0 petrols are FFV and as such qualify for a 50% VRT rebate) you get a 50% VRT rebate, whatever that turns out to be. Somewhere around a €5k saving I reckon. So really you can get your 2.0 Mondeo petrol for around €7,500 less than the 2.0 diesel at the moment.

Then in July the 50% VRT rebate disappears and is replaced by a €2,500 one. VRT comes down to 28% as well, so in July it should be around €29,000(including the €2,500 rebate), a little under probably.

Moving to the paraffin stove, that should be around €32,200, probably closer to €32,500.

So the current €7,500 saving is now disappearing to a saving of about €3,500. And that, as Jeremy Clarkson would say, makes a bit of a difference! In fairness that is the exception rather than the rule. Most diesels are hardly any dearer than the petrol sisters, and may even be a little bit cheaper.

Now, back to the OP: whatever your opinion, there is no denying the fact that there will be a big shift to diesel after July.

In fairness for the vast majority of people, diesel is the only way to go. They're every bit as good as petrols to drive, but there are huge cost savings. Yes you do end up polluting your neighbourhood a lot more, make the air you breathe in not as nice as it could be, and help to contribute to the 80,000 Europeans estimated to dying every year by the WHO because of diesel fumes, but there are huge cost savings, a driving experience that is every bit as good if completely different as a petrol, as well as a lower CO2 footprint if your bothered about that sort of thing to be gained.

For most cars, I can't think of any reason to go petrol over diesel. Unless you're that bothered about all the extra pollution, are basically diesel phobic, and value the superior quietness of petrols that much(really once they're warmed up and moving there is no disadvantage, which is lets face it the vast majority of time), then there is no reason for the most part to choose petrol, even for low mileage drivers.

The only cars that will continue to be popular in petrol are small cars like the Polo, Corsa etc, hot hatches like the Golf GTI, Focus ST(though many manufacturers now do diesel offerings these days, so for how much longer this remains to be true is yet to be seen), and of course sports and performance cars. Some family hatchbacks like the Astra and Mazda3 where the diesel is still quite a bit dearer will probably continue to be reasonably popular in petrol format.

BMW do petrols that get into the same VRT category with the 3 and 5 series(most 6 cylinder models), but apart from that, I don't expect any mainstream cars bigger than the Astra etc to sell well in petrol format.

Especially when the VRT band has a big gap between petrol and diesel, like with most Renaults, there will be very few petrols sold, but presumably when the gap is only a band between petrol and diesel then petrol will stay fairly popular provided the price gap is big enough.

The manufacturers will be determined to get us to buy as many diesels as possible, they spent a small fortune developing these technologies that have totally transformed diesel engines and they'll want their return on investment;)!

Gatster

E92 wrote: »

They're every bit as good as petrols to drive

Oooo, controversial.

E92

What's controversial about it? Most people who think petrols are slow don't know how to drive them, it's not my fault people don't know how to use them properly.

And what about noise? Clatter? Rattles? Once you move off 4 cylinder engines, petrols make a noise a million billion times better than a diesel can even dream of. I wasn't specifically referring to performance when I said "they're every bit as good to drive as petrols", I meant the whole package;)!

Gatster

Have I missed something, when you said 'They're every bit as good as petrols to drive', were you not defending diesels?

And what about noise? Clatter? Rattles? Once you move off 4 cylinder engines, petrols make a noise a million billion times better than a diesel can even dream of.

Then you say this? Personally, I think petrol is the better drive, and I've driven top-end diesels, but still prefer the rev range, flexibility and noise of petrol.

E92

Gatster wrote: »

Have I missed something, when you said 'They're every bit as good as petrols to drive', were you not defending diesels?

Then you say this? Personally, I think petrol is the better drive, and I've driven top-end diesels, but still prefer the rev range, flexibility and noise of petrol.

I notice you left out the bit where I said "I wasn't specifically referring to performance when I said "they're every bit as good to drive as petrols", I meant the whole package!" though. I don't see any contradiction there. The low down torque means they don't catch you out like a petrol does if you're in too high a gear, and that's nice(though modern turbo petrols also deliver max torque very low down the rev range too like diesels do, so that advantage is only for diesel vs NA petrol which in fairness most petrols are but that's changing), but I don't like the fact that they quite simply sound sh1t compared to a petrol and there is still plenty of diesel clatter even when they're warmed up.

Diesels are more effortless and relaxing, you don't need to change gears as often, on the other hand petrols require more effort on the drivers part but they provide a much more entertaining driving experience, piling on the revs where they do their best work is great and having plenty of petrol roar as aural entertainment is great fun indeed!