Why? I run a petrol car and a diesel van so buy both and have seen the switch in prices over the last 18 yrs since I had my first car which was incidentally a diesel!
I’m sure the refining costs of diesel are much cheaper, I don’t know this for a fact as I’m no petrochemicalist but it’s surely easier to crack diesel out of oil than petrol. Also, is diesel now not a certain percentage of biofuel making it cheaper again??

supply/demand

Hmmm interesting. I live in France and it’s the other way round here. I think there is less tax on diesel over here due to the lower emissions generally associated with it.

because increasing popularity of diesel became a good opportunity for the oil companies to screw us a bit more once people had made the switch

As uplink says, I thinks it’s because people will pay it, perceiving that it’s still “worth it” due to the (slightly) better economy…

Supply and demand.

Diesel demand has increased dramatically over the last decade, so the government has simply increased the tax on it at a greater rate than petrol.

Diesel is much cheaper to produce, if they were taxed proportionally (as they used to be), diesel wouldn’t cost much more than half the price of petrol.

Diesel cars used to make sense. Unless you’re doing mega miles, and can afford to buy brand new, they no longer make such sense.

!=?

It isn’t. HTH

Thanks Jamie, you’re my hero?

Basically what Uplink said. I had a petrol station in the 80’s & diesel was 1/2 the price of petrol but there weren’t many diesel cars around then. It’s just a bandwagon (that runs on diesel) the fuel companies have jumped on.
I can’t remember which is a by-product, petrol or diesel!

Supply and demand.

Well i say I’m not a petrochemicalistist but I did study chemistry at university, and I’m almost certain diesel refinery is (pardon the pun) crude at best! I didn’t know the tax rates on petrol and diesel were different however.

I didn’t know the tax rates on petrol and diesel were different however.

it isn’t AFAIK

Crude oil splits into loads of different things, all of which are used. So neither is a by-product of anything else.

So for a given amount of crude oil you get a certain quantity of petrol and of diesel. However, due to lots of diesel cars and more of us (presumably) buying more stuff and having it shipped by road, diesel usage has gone up so much that there isn’t enough diesel around, so they have to take the other heavy oils and split them to make diesel, which is both expensive and consumes a lot of energy.

Go back to Rudolf Diesel’s original idea and run it on vegetable oil.

Diesel has been cheaper than petrol in France for as long as I’ve been driving. I’ve no idea on the official reason but i’ll quote the most plausible explanation I’ve heard: it’s so all the trucks that transit through France fill up here thus maximising tax revenue. There must be some other reason though or else ciggies would be cheap here too.

As above, different parts of a barrel of crude make different things.

You get less diesel out of a barrel of crude than you get petrol.

So if demand is the same, then the diesel will be more expensive.

Probably simply that the demand for diesel is higher than its production (refining) capacity.

Or because its the fuel of the devil!

Simple economics, higher demand pushes the price up.

simple, you are being RIPPED OFF AGAIN, i voted with my feet by getting shut of my car … = no rip off insurance no rip off tax and no ripoff fuel costs 😀 … = healthier and happier!

I’ve heard: it’s so all the trucks that transit through France fill up here thus maximising tax revenue

It’s basically the same in Germany and in many other European countries afaik – just cheaper than here. It’s to encourage lower fuel usage I think.

simpler economics, greedy government bump up the fuel duty because they know they can get away with it!

+1 lawman

You can’t transport goods with out diesel, higher price = more revunue for the government.

Why do people just sprout shite without checking on it? Diesel and petrol duties are exactly the same in the UK.

From Wikipedia:

From 23 March 2011 the UK duty rate for the road fuels unleaded petrol, diesel, biodiesel and bioethanol is GB£0.5795 per litre

Molgrips is pretty much right. You put crude oil into one end of a refinery, and the standard state is to get fairly set proportions of petrol, diesel, bitumen etc. out of the other end.

There are far more diesel vehicles on the road now, and so the refineries end up reworking some of the other substances into diesel to meet demand, and that costs money. So the price of diesel goes up.

so why in as little as two weeks has the differential gone from 2.3 to 8.5 p at my local morrisons

The demand and cracking proportions explanation is distorted/balanced by the tankers carrying surplus petrol to America and bringing diesel back. Taken worldwide the increased proportion of diesel cars in Europe doesn’t account for the price differentials we see at the pumps, that’s down to government policies in different countries.

It’s basically the same in Germany and in many other European countries afaik – just cheaper than here. It’s to encourage lower fuel usage I think.

I don’t get it – how would lower duty encourage lower fuel usage? Have I misunderstood?

if you encourage people to buy a diesel for their next car then they will use less fuel innit.

This was started a long time ago btw when few people drove diesel cars and the demand for it was low, and petrol engines weren’t as efficient as they are now.

simple, you are being RIPPED OFF AGAIN, i voted with my feet by getting shut of my car … = no rip off insurance no rip off tax and no ripoff fuel costs

Not sure Lawmanmx understands the term ‘rip off’ fully, to be honest.

Diesel engines weren’t as efficient either and the differential has remained similar. A diesel Sierra managed to be noisy, slow and thirsty. If anything the diesel has improved more with the introduction of high pressure injection and turbos whereas the petrol engine has suffered the enforcement of the cat which put an end to lean burn technology.

So neither is a by-product of anything else.

not strictly true, in the 19th century the only thing they wanted from Crude was kerosene, so gasoline(petrol) and diesel were waste products of cracking to the extent they were dumped into rivers of the southern states. Then Mr John D Rockerfeller came along to change all that and the rest is history!

im not sure i understand Anything any more molgrips :/

I read somewhere diesel the same fraction of crude as heating oil so the price goes up in winter, while petrol isn’t so doesn’t increase?

About 9p/l differential here at the moment. But given I have a big car and if I cane it with 2 bikes on the roof I don’t get much less than 40mpg anyway then diesel doesn’t seem so bad.

AA fuel price comparison

http://www.theaa.com/onlinenews/allaboutcars/fuel/2011/october2011.pdf

A diesel Sierra managed to be noisy, slow and thirsty

That’s cos Ford were always terrible at diesels. I had a Passat TD with an old engine, I think the first turbo diesel they did. I got 45mpg and it was an estate too, twas a 1994 model but the very last of that engine.

I don’t think we have the same references when talking old diesels. I think of anything pre diesel 205. The bulge in the bonnet Mirafiori diesel was one of the last low-tech diesels.

Ford are still terrible at diesels! Well my van anyway. Never get much above 30mpg with no payload on board to be fair!

Why do people just sprout shite without checking on it? Diesel and petrol duties are exactly the same in the UK.

That maybe so, but if the price is kept high you pay more in vat per litre? Higher fuel prices = higher transporation cost, so more vat on transportation. Higher transportation = more expensive goods in the shops, guess what that means, that’s right more vat. See what i’m getting at?

Or am i just spouting sh1te?

Or am i just spouting sh1te?

You’re spouting shite. The VAT on 5 litres of fuel amounts to less than the VAT on 10 litres of fuel. But you can’t claim that VAT is higher on the 10 litres of fuel than on 5 litres of fuel. Well, not unless you’re very silly and want to spout shite.