I've heard rumor of 2.50/L gas prices now. Can it be?? Thats going to make my slow travel a lot more expensive than planned.

Around here diesel is around 1.3 +/- a bit depending on the day.

just to clarify as I am confused myself. Diesel is about 1.34 euro per liter which at the current exchange rate with the dollar is about $2 per liter or $7,50 per gallon but remember that vehicles in Italy get much better mileage than their U.S. counterparts. I get about 30+ miles to the gallon and I have an SUV, hubby gets about 80 with his commuter car

We had a car for a week in Tuscany and drove a fair bit. We only spent 50 euro on gas which was extremely resonable given the amount of driving we did.

Cristina is right cars here get much better mileage. I drive a Ford Fusion TDI wagon (not available in the US of course) and i get over 40 miles to the gallon.

In our small Umbrian town you can buy Benzina(gas) for €1.41 a liter about $8.10 a gallon.

We can buy diesel for €1.10 a liter at the IperCoop near Perugia. €1.10 a liter is $6.32 a gallon!

Rent a diesel!

Art

Interesting thoughts and discussion. It occurred to me that, since oil has historically been priced by dollars/barrel on the world market, that fuel prices should be more stable or could actually be falling in places that are spending euros to buy crude oil. I haven't worked through the math on these thoughts but the price of oil is probably not the major factor in fuel cost in Europe (I suspect taxes are the major cost component of vehicle fuel there)

Does anyone know in fact what the component cost structure of vehicle fuel is and how the exchange rate between dollars and euros has affected fuel prices?

Bill

1.39 for self serve diesel today. Yikes.

Remember that, in Europe, most of the fuel price is in fact due to taxation.

This means that prices are higher than the US, but also that a 20% increase in the cost of crude oil means only a 7-8% increase in the cost of fuel.

We just paid about €1.34 for diesel while driving through Puglia. I was curious why diesel was always the cheapest there, while most expensive back here in NY. I certainly don't know much about economics-but I did ask from a different point of view a friend who is a long-haul trucker. He said, of course, there are many more diesel vehicles in Europe, the refineries are geared towards greater production and that EPA requirements for low-sulfur fuel make our diesel that much more expensive.

To Markabauman's point - yes and remember that diesel is refined from heavy crude, same as heating oil. I recall hearing reports that demand for heating oil was higher this past winter than usual here in the US, driving up prices.