UK petrol/diesel use drops 15% in 3 years

My petrol usage has dropped by close to 50% since buying the Prius. Was around 30mpg now almost 60mpg.

 

I have noticed a lot more cars going slower (I guess they are cutting their fuel usage), and more cyclists.

 

from 36mpg to an average 89mpg for me, still doing about 18k a year...

 

You know it is funny... In 2008 when I came back from deployment I bought my first bicycle because of the gas prices (a 2009 Trek 1.2). At the time we had just bought a SRT-8 (a year prior), and I said I would keep that car till gas went past $5 a gallon.. I rode my bicycle for years, and people thought I was crazy even after gas prices went back down as I had gotten used to it and I actually enjoyed the ride.. Now like you guys I see cyclists everywhere on the road, and people driving slower. Guess it just takes awhile for people to catch on. Maybe by the time we purchase our first full EV vehicle hybrids will finally catch on with the main stream.... 89mpg is really darn good!!! You doing that in the Prius Flaninacupboard? My average is now almost 270mpg, but that is in the Volt since I only drive it using EV mode. I could not fathom getting that in our Prius, as my own personal best was 62mpg at the pump.. Average though is about 52-54mpg per tank. To think I thought that was good, lol.

EDIT: Nevermind.. Just noticed your signature.. How is the PHEV kit on the Prius holding up? I looked at doing that to ours before deciding to just get rid of the truck we were not using for the Volt.. I was worried about potential problems with modifying the car.

 

Working fine at the moment, but did have some problems (faulty BMS which caused a couple of cells to fail).
I'd love a Leaf, and the Volt/Ampera is interesting too. sadly the Leaf is $47,900 and the Ampera will be over $51,000 here. Even at $8.20 a gallon i can't make that maths work....

 

oddly, even though unemployment is fairly high in the boston area, it seems there is more traffic than ever. and, as someone mentioned, sales of gm suv's are up 33%.

 

I just checked the US data -- from first half of 2008 to first half of 2011, gasoline consumption fell just 3.6%. So the situation for the US as a whole is nothing close to the UK.

It is not clear that the data are comparable, but the official unemployment rate in the UK is about a percentage point below that in the US, 8% versus 9%. But obviously that's going to vary a lot by area.

A 15% drop in three years is really pretty startling. There most be something more than just unemployment driving that. The cited article says record fuel prices, whereas here gas prices are well below the recent highs.

How fast are they rising in the UK? I see one chart that seems to show a 44% increase in the last two years, from around 1 pound to 1.40 pounds per liter (or litre, given the circumstances) of diesel. If I did the math right, that's equivalent to going from US$6 to US$8.50 a gallon. In a weak economy, yeah, I bet that would reduce some demand all right.

Whereas the US peak was about $4.40 for regular gas in early 2008, and the current national average is around $3.40 per gallon. Thus making it, in the mind of the US consumer, a dandy time to buy a gas guzzler.

Bet it changes the mix of cars you see on the road in the UK. And by that I mean, more upscale vehicles.

 

And in the US, by contrast, fuel taxes and all other vehicle-related fees and taxes do not even cover the cost of roads. (Or, at least, they did not come close when I checked that a couple of years ago.) Yet there was some rumbling that the Tea Party wanted to cut the Federal fuel tax, to reduce it from the onerous rate of 18.4 cents per gallon (gas) or 24.4 cents per gallon (diesel). State taxes run higher, so the average total tax is about 45 cents for gas, 50 cents for diesel. This does not seem to me to be either a smart way to operate currently or a smart way to prepare for the future.

Whereas per Wikipedia, you Brits pay about 0.60 pounds gas tax per litre, plus 20% VAT on top of that. Which works out to US$3.60 per (US) gallon, plus the VAT. Boy howdy, that's a pretty stiff tax.

 

The recession and tax policy definitely have reduced oil use in the UK.

The question is has the British government put that money to good use or simply pissed it away.

 

I know in my state, we're struggling to cover road expenses and that includes money from ARRA. Although, they are attempting to build a bunch of fly-overs to alleviate the "cluster f***" right around the corner from me where I95/295/495 all come together. It's going to be around a 3 year inconvenience that I get to experience daily

It probably didn't help that last year they started to repave one of the roads near me, and had to use the cold patch on the road because temps dropped too low in the middle of the job (wish I knew which moron authorized a late october job) and redo it again this spring/summer. Hopefully they made the contractor eat the cost, but I doubt it.