F-Body Europe

The Germany economy has phased out the use of REGULAR gasoline and it will no longer be available! Starting January 1, 2009 (yes tomorrow!) they will stop delivering it to AFFESS and once it is gone, it is gone.



http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?sect ... icle=59725

They are phasing it out of Germany entirely and raising the cost of what is left to the midgrade price.

Come on Germany, you're fricken' killing me here! What the hell kind of sense does that make? Using super or super plus will make absolutely NO difference in economy or emissions for 95% of the vehicles out there. If you are trying to phase out gasoline entirely, I would think you would need another form of propulsion in place FIRST.....MAYBE even a little warning might be nice.

Well, no doubt the reason for this is the virtually non-existent price-difference between regular and super ... in fact, unknown to many people, filling stations have already phased out regular unleaded for months, with super being in both regular and super pumps ... oil companies claim higher demands of regular fuel in the US and of course far east for the relative higher price ... also, with most newer cars demanding at least super fuel, demand has dropped considerably ...

As I don't think any cars should have problems with super fuel, I guess this should effectively help oil companies by less cost for delivering a grade of fuel to the filling stations that is hardly used ...

Gary,

Interesting perspective. So, do you think the cost of mid will decline due to the phase out of regular? I would venture to guess that it will not.

The virtual non-existent price difference seems to be self inflicted off base with the sole intention of phasing it out. I can tell you that out of the 4 cars I own....only 1 requires anything above regular. Sure, it wouldn't hurt to have a higher grade, but there is absolutely no reason that I can see to justify the extra cost.

What did you mean by "oil companies claim higher demands of regular fuel in the US and of course far east for the relative higher price"

Me neither ...

Chicken and egg I guess ... I guess the decrease in price difference led to the decision to phase it out, and do that by removing the price difference at the pump (easy, just increase regular price by a cent, and you're there).

Well, with a higher percentage of cars in the US as well as countries like China having more cars, their demand for regular fuel is increasing more than that of higher grade fuels ... so, as with any "free" market, higher demand leads to higher prices ...

Although I also think they made the regular fuel as expensive as Super just to have a reason to phase it out, my cars have always required Super or better, so nothing changes for me...