As I was filling my car up with petrol I noticed a handy converter to show me how much petrol is per gallon from the price per litre. As you can see it’s a bit out of date, despite looking relatively shiny and new:
Just goes to show how expensive running a car in the UK is getting. Or maybe it’s a marketing ploy to make you think it’s not quite as expensive as it really is relying on the fact that most people need a calculator to add up!
It’s worth highlighting that this conversion table refers to standard Imperial gallons, as defined in 1824 – i.e. around 4.546 litres. Not to be confused with the US (liquid) gallon of approx 3.785 litres.
Do you know how much petrol has gone up in the past four years? I don’t either, but I can tell you that my bus fare to work has increased by 65%! Scandalous.
I’m not sure, but it’s a fair amount. Having said that, Ian sent me this graph which compares relative prices for US petrol prices (in blue) to UK (in red) assuming they were both the same in ’99. I guess while it’s cheaper over there it’s a hell of a lot more volatile: