Petrol pump sales decrease over five years, says AA

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Petrol pump sales decrease over five years, says AA

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Started 12 years ago by kaputnik
Latest reply from neddie

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petrol price

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kaputnik
Moderator

Forecourt sales of petrol have plunged by more than 20% in five years, the AA has said.

The motoring organisation said official government figures showed 17 billion litres were sold last year compared to 22 billion in 2007.

Does anyone else think that the AA rentaquote is spinning this like it is a bad thing?

I also get the feeling, with no evidence but my own observation, that indeed there are more smaller cars on the road, however cars in general are much bigger than they used to be, and for every couple of small cars there's a hulking great Nissan Navara or Range Rover the likes of which you would never have seen 5 years ago.

Posted 12 years ago #
gembo
Member

I notice the big cars on the A70 as the road is narrow. Lot of them wait for you as they are too big to squeeze past you and avoid the traffic coming in the other direction.

Nice demonstration of basic economics, often with the basic laws of economics (well my first year university understanding of the subject) it is hard to find real life data. But this is supply and demand. price goes up, amount bought goes down. There used to be a counter argument that certain basics defied supply and demand? You need the same amount of petrol to get you around. But this looks like petrol fluctuates too. Other explanations? people running cars on cooking oil? people not driving so much? Cars more efficient? ( not just smaller cars? Maybe better fuel consumption in the big ones?). AA citing diesel and smaller cars. Diesel used to be same price or indeed cheaper than petrol but the cost of the car was more. Now diesel is more expensive, so that sort of tinkers with the law of supply and demand.

Posted 12 years ago #
Uberuce
Member

Ah, silly Kappers. Don't you know that every pound not spent on motor fuel is taken into the back garden and burnt, ceremonially? The notion that people do not, in fact, destroy the money saved on fuel and instead put it into economy in other areas is and always shall be absurd.

Same goes for road tax, which totally exists. Why just last night I just took the couple of hundred quid I would have spent taxing my car, folded it into an origami Joan of Arc and torched it, cackling wildly and cursing her in medieval English. I used fifties this time, I think the metal strip in them gives prettier colours than the ones in twenties and tens.

Posted 12 years ago #
gembo
Member

Uberuce is Justified and Ancient and he drives an ice cream van, as Tammy Wynette was made to sing by KLF, before they took to burning money

Posted 12 years ago #
Kenny
Member

I'd have thought that cars being a lot more fuel efficient these days is part of the explanation for the drop in litres sold.

Posted 12 years ago #
paul.mag
Member

I think they are called "giffen goods" gembo although that is also something dredged from my recollection of first year economics. I don't think that the AA is overly spinning the story in a bad but are just stating the facts, plus they are going to have the motorists at their heart. less cars on road = less breakdowns = less need for patrols etc etc. I do agree though that cars are just bigger. My 1930's house has a driveway of chuckies and a "ramp" of slabs and my Vectra doesn't fit on the ramp as the width of the car is much bigger, I drove past a 1980's escort the other day and i'd swear its smaller than my wifes Ka

Posted 12 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"I drove past a 1980's escort the other day and i'd swear its smaller than my wifes Ka"

Unlikely.

But true -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Escort_(Europe)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ka

(Heavier as well.)

I'm surprised too!

Posted 12 years ago #
gembo
Member

That is most surprising and does suggest in a single salient exemplar that cars are bigger as the perception of the Ka is that it is small.

Giffen goods, very light tinkling of bells.

Also from Ordinary Economics Glasgow 1983 I remember one joke about sociologists' brains told by Duncan MacLennan, my Greek tutor, it was all Greek, my pal mac fighting his Israeli tutor in a tutorial, the dundonian response to criticism? And a bizarre mark in an essay about the money supply which allowed me to escape from studying economics. Those were the days

Posted 12 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"I'd have thought that cars being a lot more fuel efficient these days is part of the explanation for the drop in litres sold."

Doubt if it could account for that much of the 25% over 5 years.

Important figure would also be mileage - preferably with some sort of congested city/'open road' split.

In this context some idea of people mileage would be very useful. Are people travelling less or sharing more?

Posted 12 years ago #
wee folding bike
Member

Minis are stupidly big these days too.

My Volvo 940 is based on the 145 from the mid '60s and hasn't changed size very much. I get told off for saying the other Volvo (V40) is wee but for me it is.

I drive much less than I used to but most of that is down to Bromptons being able to go places with you.

Posted 12 years ago #
crowriver
Member

~~Doesn't say anything about volumes of diesel sold. So this could be just fuel substitution, not necessarily an overall decline in fossil fuel burning for motor transport.~~

Combined with an increase in the sale of diesel, total vehicle fuel sales fell by 9% over the past five years.

Doh!

Posted 12 years ago #
crowriver
Member

"I drove past a 1980's escort the other day and i'd swear its smaller than my wifes Ka"

Unlikely.

But true

Probably all the armour plating/side impact protection/crumple zones/air conditioning/extra boot space/bigger engine/computer control/extra passenger leg room/power steering/electric windows/sound system/cup holders/sun roof/etc.

Posted 12 years ago #
steveo
Member

Road Diesel demand has remained fairly constant since 2007 whilst gasoline has dropped about 20% compared to 2007.

Posted 12 years ago #
cc
Member

Re the Ford Escort & Ka, it's an old trick of car companies - whenever they replace a model with an identically named one, they make the new car slightly bigger than the old one. It gets the unwary to size up and buy a bigger and more expensive car each time. Larger cars can be a lot more profitable. Here's another example: the current VW Polo is longer, wider, taller and up to 31% heavier than the original VW Golf. (Figures from wikipedia, dodgy arithmetic all my own.)

Posted 12 years ago #
Baldcyclist
Member

Don't worry, the answer is in the air....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9761000/9761570.stm

Posted 12 years ago #
paul.mag
Member

I noticed an advert the other day for the Fiat 500 L. Another small car on steroids. Can you actually buy a new small car these days?

Posted 12 years ago #
Baldcyclist
Member

Fiat 500 L ???

Ughh, what have they done? They already have the Fiat Panda for people who don't care what their car looks like!

Posted 12 years ago #
steveo
Member

Can you actually buy a new small car these days?

No, generally because they're rubbish. Consumers in the west have come to expect a certain level of refinement. No general consumer, different from enthusiast, would want to drive a 70's car, no one would want to drive a 90's small car.

I had a '92 Polo it was <no swearing>, rattly, heavy steering and noise form every moving part, gave a poor girl in the petrol station a fright one day when some oil leaked on to the manifold and started to smoke.... It was reliable and with the seats down it was a passable stuff transporter but it was not a pleasant experience.

Posted 12 years ago #
crowriver
Member

Can you actually buy a new small car these days?

Er... what about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo

You can still get the pint-sized Fiat 500 (without the L):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_500_(2007)

Not that I'm thinking about buying a car anyhow, but still...

Posted 12 years ago #
Wilmington's Cow
Member

"Minis are stupidly big these days too."

Minis are always trotted out as examples of 'cars getting bigger' - but the new Mini only shares a name and a vague resemblance with the original Mini. It's not actually intended to be a pocket-sized car.

The original Mini is comparable to something like the Toyota Aygo. The new Mini is more a modern equivalent in the Golf and Escort bracket - so if it's bigger than those (which I think it is - certainly bigger than the older ones, but then the modern Golf is bigger than the original Golf, and they ARE allegedly still the same type of car for doing the same job) then there's a reasonable comparison.

But saying 'Minis are big' is no different than saying 'the Ford Focus is big'. Modern Fiat 500 is bigger than the original Fiat 500, but again, different types of car. Old and new VW Scrirocco might be comparable sizes, but retain the same purpose. New Beetle is bigger than the old Beetle.

Oh, and yes, Fiat 500L - urgh!

Small cars? Of course you can! Aygo, Twingo, Smart, there are teeny Pugs, Citroen C1 - and all with the mod cons.

Sadly there are also a lot more behemoths to balance that out. Why does anyone need a Nissan Navara 'Invincible' to do the school run?

EDIT: Beaten on the small cars by Crowriver cos I was getting verbosely defensive about my Mini (which is a Clubman, so bigger than the hatch, though not monstrously ugly like the Countryman or the even worse Paceman - and while we're at it, the little Coupe version is hideous as well).

Posted 12 years ago #
Baldcyclist
Member

Both of those cars are aimed at women.

We looked at both (we bought the 500) when my wife was looking for a new car, and of the SMART car she said "How would you get a pram in that?", and even the 500 would need the back seats put forward to fit a pram.

Posted 12 years ago #
Wilmington's Cow
Member

Greasmonkey Cycles has a Citroen C1 with three bike racks on the roof, and a towbar mounted rack...

Posted 12 years ago #
crowriver
Member

@Baldcyclist. presumably aimed at single women? Though whenever I see a Smart car, it's usually driven by a bloke (often on George Street, must be handy for parking in tight spots).

Anyhow, prams and buggies are another example where size has really got out of hand! You can fit a McLaren stroller in just about anything (even on the back of a bike with a special rack attachment) but some of the huge 'travel systems' suffer from the same elephantitis as family ~~urban tanks~~ cars.

Posted 12 years ago #
steveo
Member

"How would you get a pram in that?"

My mini hatch boot only barely fits a pram base, the actual part you put the child in has to go in the cab.

Posted 12 years ago #
steveo
Member

Small cars? Of course you can! Aygo, Twingo, Smart, there are teeny Pugs, Citroen C1 - and all with the mod cons.

But by weight they're closer to a mid sized car of old.

Posted 12 years ago #
steveo
Member

Anyhow, prams and buggies are another example where size has really got out of hand!

You think??

1950's pram

Posted 12 years ago #
crowriver
Member

not monstrously ugly like the Countryman

Had the misfortune to cycle behind one of these today. My eyes were fairly aching at the hideousness of the rear end! The trim, the proportions, the shape it's just all so wrong. Ugh!

Posted 12 years ago #
crowriver
Member

Yeah but steveo, in the 1950s folk were not loading them in and out of urban 4x4s. They were perambulating (ie. locomotion involving bipedal motion of the lower limbs).

Posted 12 years ago #
kaputnik
Moderator

Er... what about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo

Slightly heavier than a Hillman Imp. Similar width, shorter but significantly taller. And only seats for 2!

Posted 12 years ago #
crowriver
Member

Okay, buggy inflation in pictures:

McLaren folded

Quinny folded

Bugaboo folded

Posted 12 years ago #

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