Fuel prices on the up! 燃油价格上涨！汽车机械师

Fuel prices on the up!

• Car      Mechanics (UK)

• 1      Apr 2022

• Martyn      Knowles, Editor Email martyn.knowles@kelsey.co.uk Follow us on Facebook @      Car Mechanics

Crude oil and electricity are both about to dramatically increase in price due to many factors. Time to give the bicycle an oiling!

▶ I know I keep going on about fuel costs but I feel at the moment we are about to see rises like we’ve never seen before. How much are you paying in your area? Every time I go to fill up it seems to have risen by 1p per litre. However, last week 10p per litre was added within a five-day period.

For those of us (me included) who choose to put E5 petrol into their tanks (instead of E10) we are already accustomed to paying higher prices than those listed on the illuminated billboards. I paid £1.759 a litre at the end of February for Esso’s finest Supreme+ Diesel whilst trying to find a way of getting the emissions within limits on our ex-project Saab 9-3 TTID – it had recently failed its MOT on the smoke test. More on how we eventually gained an MOT certificate in a future report.

Do any CM readers fill up with the more expensive petrol or diesel fuels offered by the bigger chains? Known as Premium products, they are said to offer more cleaning power over the regular fuels, yet at something like 10p per litre (45 pence per gallon) on top, is it worth it? As an example, adding 60 litres of the extortionate fuel to your tank will cost you £6 above what it would cost to fill with the regular fuel. Maybe you fill with the Premium fuels and find that it makes a difference to your running costs (ie. better fuel consumption) or that the emissions are cleaner (diesel)? Do let us know.

Something I don’t hear too much about is how costly it is to charge an electric vehicle (EV). I’ve learnt from neighbours that some in-town multistory car parks have ‘free’ charging while you shop – and some of the supermarkets also offer no-cost charging.

To gain more information, I turned to the Auto Express website. They say a Nissan LEAF 40kwh motor charged via your 3-pin home socket will take 13hrs costing around £6. Of course, there’s no additional installation costs doing it this way – though one long wait. Installing a home-charging unit will cut down the charging period significantly. They go on to say that over a distance of 9000 miles with a petrol model averaging 45mpg, it will burn £1200 in fuel (currrent prices will be about £1400), while a 40kwh EV with a 168-mile range would cost you around £300.

I am considering having solar roof panels fitted, with a home battery storage system. Not that we are in the market for an EV just yet, but with rising electricity prices, it seems like a good time. Have any CM readers taken this road and was it beneficial? Does the battery storage system work OK and are there any limitations?